^       „ 

R  NGEK 


Gf 

X  X 


THE  GUN-RUNNER 


THE 

GUN-RUNNER 


A  Novel 


BY 

ARTHUR  STRINGER 

Author  of " The  Wire-Tappers,"  "The  Under  Groove," 
"The  Silver  Poppy,"  etc.,  etc. 


f 


NEW  YORK 
B.  W.  DODGE  &  COMPANY 

1909 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
B.  W.  DODGE  &  COMPANY 


Registered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London 
(All  Rights  Reserved) 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

A  portion  of  this  novel  was  printed  in  the 
January,  1909,  number  of  "The  Popular  Maga 
zine,"  under  the  same  title  which  is  here  used 
for  the  story  in  its  complete  form. 


DEDICATION 


To  my  old  bunkie  and  friend  and  camp-mate, 
C&arles  (StotoatiJ  jflillis 


ivho  in  the  good  days  that  are  gone  was  known 

as    "Shorty,"    and    'knocked    about    all    the 

blessed  Seven  Seas  of  the  earth  and  smoked 

over  campftres  in  four  continents  and  ad 

ventured  up  and  down  the  length  of  the 

two  Americas  and  always  loved  War 

and  Danger  and  the  Open  Road, 

and  full  many  a  time  tramped 

and  camped  and  hunted  and 

went    hungry    witH    me,    I 

most  apprehensively  yet 

affectionately    inscribe 

this  volume 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTKB  FA.GS 

I.— The  City  of  Peril 1 

II.— The  Spark  in  the  Gap 24 

III.— The  Call  from  Without 35 

IV.— The  Man  on  Board 44 

V.— The  Web  of  Intrigue 57 

VI.— The  Second   Visitor 71 

VII.— The  Tangling  Skein 81 

VIII.— The  Pawn  and  the  Board 92 

IX.— The  Converging  Trails 106 

X.— The  Reverse  of  the  Shield 119 

XI.— The  Movement  in  Retreat 129 

XII.— The  Bull-Baiters 141 

XIII.— The  Recovered  Ground 151 

XIV.— The  Pyrrhic  Victor 166 

XV.— The  Lull  in  the  Storm 176 

XVI.— The  Vernal  Invasion 194 

XVII.— The  Proffered  Crown 201 

XVIII.— The  Coaet  of  Mischance..  .  211 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX.— The  Intercepted  Call 221 

XX.— The  Listening  Ally 231 

XXI. — The  Unexpected  Blow 238 

XXII.— The  Primordial  Hour .*. 248 

XXIIL— The  Recaptured  Key 256 

XXIV.— The  Call  for  Help 263 

XXV.— The  Trump  Card 277 

XXVI.— The  Dead-Line  289 

XXVII.— The  Flight  297 

XXVIII.— The  Counter-Forces 306 

XXIX.— The  Disputed  Trail 318 

XXX.— The  Last  Ditch 324 

XXXI.— The  Last  Hope 332 

XXXII.— The  Last  Stand 341 

XXXIII.— The  Last  Word 354 

XXXIV.— The  Last  Debt...  .366 


THE  GUN-RUNNER 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CITY  OF  PEBIL 

THE  fog  groped  and  felt  its  way  along  the 
water-front.  Then  it  crept  up  to  the  throat  of 
the  city,  like  a  grey  hand,  and  strangled  Broad 
way  into  an  ominous  quietness. 

It  tightened  its  grip,  as  the  day  grew  older, 
leaving  the  cross-streets  from  Union  Square 
to  the  Battery  clotted  with  congested  traffic.  It 
brought  on  an  untimely  protest  of  blinking 
street-lamps,  as  uncannily  bewildering  as  the 
mid-day  cock-crowing  of  a  solar  eclipse.  It 
caused  the  vague  and  shadowy  walls  of  sky 
scrapers  to  blossom  into  countless  yellow  win 
dow  tiers,  as  close-packed  as  the  scales  of  a 
snake.  Bells  sounded  from  gloom-wrapt  ship 
ping  along  the  saw-tooth  line  of  the  river  slips, 
tolling  the  watches  and  falling  silent  and  tolling 
again,  as  they  might  have  tolled  in  mid-ocean, 
or  on  some  lonely  waterway  that  led  to  the  ut 
termost  ends  of  the  earth. 

Now  and  then,  out  of  the  distance,  a  river- 
i 


2  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

ferry  or  a  car-float  tug  could  be  heard  growl 
ing  and  whimpering  for  room,  as  it  wrangled 
over  its  right-of-way.  Everything  moved  slow 
ly  through  the  muffled  streets.  Carriages  crept 
across  the  sepulchral  quietness  with  a  strange 
and  uncouth  reverence,  like  tourists  through  a 
catacomb.  Surface  cars,  crawling  funereally 
forward,  felt  their  way  with  gong-strokes,  as 
blind  men  feel  their  way  with  stick-taps.  An 
occasional  taxicab,  swinging  tentatively  out  of  a 
side-street,  slewed  and  skidded  in  the  greasy 
mud.  Lonely  drivers  watched  from  their  seats, 
watched  like  sea  captains  from  bridge-ends 
when  ice  has  invaded  their  sea  lanes. 

Under  the  gas-lamps,  dulled  to  a  reddish  yel 
low,  passed  a  thin  scattering  of  pedestrians.  A 
touch  of  desolation  clung  about  each  figure  that 
groped  its  way  through  the  short-vistaed  street, 
as  though  the  thoroughfare  it  trod  were  a  lonely 
moraine  and  the  figure  itself  the  last  man  that 
walked  a  ruined  world.  It  was  the  worst  fog 
that  New  York  had  known  for  years;  the  city 
lay  under  it  like  a  mummy  swathed  in  grey. 

Yet  the  gloom  seemed  to  crown  it  with  a  new 
wonder,  to  endow  it  with  a  new  dignity.  That 
all  too  shallow  tongue  of  land  that  is  lipped  by 
the  East  and  North  rivers  took  on  strange  and 
undreamt-of  distances.  It  lay  engulfed  in  twi 
light  mysteries,  enriched  with  unlooked-for  pos- 


THE  CITY  OF  PEEIL  3 

sibilities.  Its  narrow  acres  of  brick  and  stone 
and  asphalt  became  something  unbounded  and 
infinite,  as  bewildering  and  wide  as  the  open 
Atlantic.  It  seemed  to  harbour  fantastic  poten 
tialities.  It  seemed  to  release  the  spirit  of  ro 
mance,  as  moonlight  unfetters  a  lover's  lips. 

Yet  Lingg,  the  wireless  operator  of  the 
Laminian,  became  more  and  more  alarmed  at 
the  opacity  of  this  fog.  He  felt,  as  he  burrowed 
mole-like  across  the  mist-blanketed  city,  that  he 
had  been  a  fool  to  leave  the  ship.  He  should 
have  listened  to  reason.  And  now  he  had  missed 
his  way.  He  was  lost  in  the  very  heart  of  that 
vast  and  undecipherable  wilderness,  which  had 
always  filled  him  with  a  vague  fear,  even  in  the 
open  sunlight,  where  its  serrated  skyline  re 
minded  him  of  a  waiting  trap-jaw.  He  was 
hopelessly  at  sea  in  the  silence  which  surround 
ed  him,  overawed  by  the  quietness  which  the 
turn  of  a  street-corner  might  convert  into  some 
perilous  ambuscade.  Heilig,  the  engineer,  had 
been  right.  He'd  been  a  fool  to  come  ashore. 

He  recalled,  a  little  enviously,  the  figure  of 
the  engineer,  the  morose  and  lank  and  slatternly 
figure  in  ragged  carpet-slippers,  leaning  against 
the  ship's  rail  and  smoking  the  long-stemmed 
German  pipe  with  its  blue  china  bowl.  He  re 
membered  the  engineer's  impassive  stare  and 
his  almost  placid  grunt  of  protest  as  he  wheeled 


4  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

slowly  round  towards  the  solid  land  that  he 
always  seemed  to  hate. 

" Where  yuh  off  to,  son?"  he  asked,  as  Lingg 
dropped  to  the  splintered  stringpiece  of  the 
wharf.  The  Laminian  was  chafing  and  fretting 
against  that  stringpiece  just  as  his  own  soul  had 
been  chafing  and  fretting  against  the  desolation 
of  her  empty  decks. 

"Ashore,"  Lingg  answered,  resolutely 
enough,  yet  against  all  the  voices  of  better 
judgment. 

"Wimmin?"  demanded  the  laconic  figure 
against  the  rail. 

"No!"  exploded  the  impatient  youth. 

* '  Then  what  yuh  after  ? ' '  persisted  his  gloomy 
interlocutor. 

"What  am  I  after?"  echoed  the  other,  having 
no  answer  ready. 

"What  d'yuh  want  with  all  that?"  demanded 
the  engineer,  with  a  contemptuous  pipe-wave 
that  embraced  the  entire  island  of  Manhattan. 

"I  guess  I  want  to  mind  my  own  business," 
was  the  reproving  answer.  It  was  followed  by 
a  contemplative  eye-blink  or  two  from  the  man 
in  the  carpet-slippers.  But  the  disgust  did  not 
go  out  of  his  face. 

"No  good  comes  o'  knowin'  hell-holes  like 
this,"  he  at  last  averred,  with  a  slow  and  sa 
gacious  side-wag  of  his  head.  He  spat  into  the 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  5 

slip  water;  it  was  a  rite  of  his  infinite  con 
tempt. 

"I'm  not  going  beyond  Broadway,"  the  half- 
repentant  Lingg  stopped  to  explain,  marvelling 
at  that  strange  and  lonely  seaman's  fixed  dis 
trust  of  solid  land.  He  did  not  think  it  worth 
while  to  enlarge  on  how  sick  he  was  of  the  ship 
stink  and  the  quietness,  of  the  fumes  of  rotting 
fruit,  of  the  heavy  musk-smell  of  harbour  water, 
and  the  febrile  rattle  and  clatter  of  donkey  en 
gines. 

"Yuh'll  find  bad  enough  b 'tween  here  and 
Broadway,"  avowed  the  placid  misanthrope  at 
the  ship's  rail,  contemplating  his  pipe-smoke  as 
though  it  were  incense  rising  before  the  epito 
mised  wisdom  of  all  the  ages. 

But  Lingg  was  not  altogether  looking  for  the 
bad.  He  had  been  remembering  how  one  of  the 
junior  officers  of  the  Pretoria,  when  in  port, 
spent  his  two  riotous  days  riding  up  and  down 
in  the  Fifth  Avenue  'buses,  the  delirious 
'buses,  which  he  described  as  "bee-hives  of 
swarming  beauty,"  where  he  was  ignored  and 
elbowed  and  walked  over  by  "the  finest  women 
who  ever  wore  feathers,"  to  his  hungering 
heart's  content.  And  Lingg,  too,  was  hungering 
for  some  glimpse  of  life  beyond  that  of  a  dirty 
fore-deck;  for  a  sight  of  faces  less  satyr-like 
than  that  of  a  brandy-steeped  sea  captain.  He 


6  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

wanted  to  see  light  and  colour  and  movement. 
The  unpurged  emotional  tracts  of  youth  ached 
for  some  undiscerned  adventure.  But  above  all 
he  was  swayed  by  a  wordless,  yet  none  the  less 
compelling  hunger  to  behold  the  faces  of  women 
and  girls.  Some  subliminal  sex-hunger,  after 
so  many  empty  days  at  sea,  made  him  long  for 
that  vague  upper  world  which  seemed  embodied 
in  this  very  word,  Girls.  He  wanted  to  see  them, 
good  or  bad,  with  painted  faces  or  pure.  It 
scarcely  mattered,  so  long  as  he  could  look  at 
them.  They  would  all  be  goddesses  to  him, 
Olympian  beings  who  breathed  some  diviner  air, 
trailing  clouds  of  mystery  after  their  most 
casual  footsteps.  He  did  not  ask  to  walk  or 
speak  with  them.  Their  lowliest  skirt-swish 
would  seem  only  too  like  the  ruffle  of  angel 
wings.  He  merely  wanted  to  brush  against 
them,  indeterminately,  in  the  city's  crowded 
places,  to  watch  their  coming  and  going,  to  hear 
their  occasional  voices,  to  let  his  eyes  dwell  on 
their  faces  as  a  seaman  looks  at  passing  land- 
lights.  For  Lingg  was  still  young,  clean-living 
and  clean-thoughted  beyond  the  ways  of  the 
sailor.  Heilig's  assistant  on  the  Laminian  had 
more  than  once  spoken  of  him  as  "Mealy- 
mouth.'* 

And  then,  amazingly  enough,  came  the  girl 
herself,  without  sign  or  warning. 


Where  she  fluttered  or  fell  from  he  scarcely 
knew.  It  was  somewhere  in  one  of  the  quieter 
side-streets,  and  they  were  standing  face  to  face, 
almost,  when  he  looked  up  and  saw  her.  Had 
he  seen  a  mermaid  over  the  ship's  rail  it  could 
not  have  startled  him  more.  There  was  no 
evading  the  situation;  there  was  no  chance  of 
being  mistaken.  It  was  Adventure,  in  answer  to 
his  prayer.  It  was  Eomance,  as  he  had  asked. 
And  he  had  never  so  much  as  clapped  eyes  on 
her  before.  Nor  was  her  face  a  painted  face. 
There  was  no  betraying  cupid-bow  streak  of 
carmine  on  the  softly  smiling  lips.  There  was 
no  barbaric  black  gum  on  the  undrooping  eye 
lashes,  no  tell-tale  blue  paint  on  the  eyelids. 
There  were  no  disquieting  blandishments,  no 
sidelong  and  predatory  glances,  no  ensnaring 
simulation  of  tender  levity.  His  startled  eyes 
could  detect  no  granite  savagery  under  the  vel 
vet  of  her  unconcern.  She  seemed  merely 
Woman  incarnate  to  him,  the  sort  of  woman  he 
had  sometimes  dreamt  about  on  tropic  nights 
when  the  Southern  Cross  swung  low  to  the  sky 
line. 

"You  are  Gustav  Lingg,"  she  said  quietly, 
and  as  plain  as  day,  while  his  wide  eyes  still 
studied  every  tint  and  shadow  and  line  of  her 
untroubled  face.  On  that  face  he  seemed  to 


8  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

see  nothing  but  a  gentle  yet  determined  abstrac 
tion. 

"Y — yes,"  he  stammered,  vacuously,  as 
though  her  statement  had  been  a  question.  A 
faint  tingle  of  something  that  was  neither  fear 
nor  delight  went  needling  up  and  down  his  back 
bone. 

"I  want  to  talk  to  you,"  the  woman  said, 
quite  gravely.  "I  must  talk  to  you — alone." 

He  knew  that  she  had  turned  and  joined  him 
as  he  moved  wonderingly  forward,  with  his 
staring  eyes  still  on  her.  Then  the  futility,  the 
hopelessness,  the  impossibility  of  it  all  suddenly 
came  home  to  him.  He  was  conscious  of  a  sink 
ing  feeling  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach.  Courage 
sank  away  from  him,  confidence  sucked  out  of 
him,  like  water  out  of  an  unplugged  bath-bowl. 

If  she  had  only  stood  before  him  less  alluring, 
less  Olympian  in  her  loveliness,  he  might  have 
been  less  bewildered.  If  she  had  been  the  Other 
Kind,  openly  and  unequivocally,  he  might  have 
grown  less  afraid  of  her. 

But  he  felt  and  knew  it  was  a  mistake,  a  fool 
ish  and  colossal  mistake.  A  vague  and  slowly 
mounting  fear  took  the  place  of  his  earlier  as 
tonishment.  The  city  itself  had  already  intimi 
dated  him.  He  remembered  the  engineer's  op 
probrious  summing-up  of  its  perils.  There  was 
something  amiss,  terribly  amiss. 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  9 

He  raised  his  hat  from  his  head  awkwardly, 
muttering  he  scarcely  knew  what,  as  he  heard 
her  voice  again.  He  backed  away  from  her 
as  she  essayed  to  draw  nearer,  and  stumbled, 
almost  drunkenly,  while  she  stood  regarding 
him  in  open  wonder.  Then  he  turned  and  fled 
from  her,  fled  from  her,  abashed  and  tingling, 
fled  from  her  blindly,  like  a  field-mouse  from  a 
coiled  blacksnake. 

He  did  not  stop  until  he  had  rounded  a  street- 
corner.  He  felt,  as  he  did  so,  that  he  was  de 
meaning  his  manhood  before  some  possible  high 
adventure.  He  vaguely  suspected  that  one  of 
life's  vast  occasions  had  slipped  away  from  him 
unrecognised.  But  he  was  still  afraid,  foolishly 
afraid.  He  was  glad  to  dip  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  city,  as  though  it  were  a  cleansing  bath 
that  might  wash  away  his  lubberly  awkward 
ness.  He  was  glad  when  the  fog  crept  into  the 
streets  and  helped  to  obliterate  him  and  his 
shame.  He  was  glad  to  wander  unknown  and 
unrecognised  about  the  grey-draped  solitude 
that  engulfed  him. 

He  knew  that  the  woman  had  not  followed 
him.  But  all  that  afternoon  he  wandered  and 
tarried  and  walked  about  with  the  feeling  that 
he  was  not  alone.  He  kept  looking  over  his 
shoulder  from  time  to  time,  pondering  some 
wordless  yet  persistent  sense  of  disquiet.  He 


10  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

felt  as  though  he  were  being  shadowed.  He 
could  not  shake  off  the  impression  that  some 
vague  figure  or  two  was  guardedly  dogging  his 
footsteps. 

This  sense  of  being  shadowed  grew  stronger 
as  night  came  on.  It  made  him  doubly  anxious 
to  get  back  to  his  ship,  to  know  the  security  of 
his  bald,  little,  white-painted  cabin.  It  caused 
him  to  reiterate  to  himself  the  engineer's  morose 
dictum  that  the  city  was  not  to  be  trusted.  He 
had  hungered  for  the  Unexpected ;  he  had  been 
restless  for  his  emprising  hour  or  two  on  land. 
But  this,  he  muttered  to  himself,  was  the  kind  of 
night  that  took  all  the  curl  out  of  Romance.  He 
was  not  worthy  of  the  venture.  He  was  better 
suited  to  the  quietness  of  a  ship's  cabin.  He  dis 
liked  the  thought  of  the  two  pacing  shadows 
that  seemed  to  be  following  him  through  the 
fog.  He  wanted  the  Laminian's  dirty  fore-deck 
once  more  under  his  feet. 

He  designedly  kept  out  of  all  danger  zones,  to 
make  security  doubly  sure.  A  thick-voiced  man 
with  a  black  muffler  about  his  throat  had 
trailed  after  him  to  demand  if  he  had  no  old 
clothes  to  dispose  of.  But  he  did  not  so  much  as 
stop  to  answer.  A  stranger  in  a  Stetson  hat, 
still  later,  caught  companionably  at  his  arm  and 
implored  him  to  drink  with  him.  But  he  freed 
himself  sharply  and  kept  on  his  way.  A  figure 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  11 

or  two  blocked  his  path  ominously,  but  he  skirt 
ed  them,  as  a  careful  pilot  skirts  his  channel- 
buoys.  He  did  not  care  to  run  risks.  He  felt 
that  he  was  still  in  the  land  of  the  enemy.  He 
kept  to  the  open,  blindly  and  doggedly.  He 
knew  but  one  goal,  and  that  goal  lay  beyond  the 
Laminian's  odorous  gangplank.  He  fought  his 
devious  way  towards  it,  like  a  spawning  sock- 
eye  fighting  its  way  to  a  river  source. 

He  hurried  along  the  fog-wrapt  canons,  still 
haunted  by  the  impression  of  some  unknown 
figure  dogging  his  steps.  He  felt,  as  night  and 
the  fog  deepened  together,  that  the  city  was 
nothing  more  than  a  many-channeled  river-bed, 
and  that  he  waded  along  its  bottom,  breathing 
a  new  element,  too  thick  for  air,  too  etherealised 
for  water.  He  saw  streets  that  were  new  to  him, 
streets  where  the  misted  globes  of  electric  lights 
became  an  undulating  double  row  of  white  tulips. 
Then  he  stumbled  into  Broadway.  But  it  was 
a  Broadway  with  the  soft  pedal  on.  Its  roar  of 
sound  was  so  muffled  he  scarcely  knew  it.  Then 
he  came  to  a  square  where  the  scattered  lamp- 
globes  looked  like  bubbles  of  gold  caught  in  tree- 
branches.  Under  these  tree-branches  he  saw 
loungers  on  benches,  mysterious  and  motionless 
figures,  like  broken  rows  of  statuary,  sleeping 
men  in  the  final  and  casual  attitudes  of  death. 
Above  these  figures  he  could  see  wet  maple- 


12  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

leaves,  hanging  as  still  and  lifeless  as  though 
they  had  been  stencilled  from  sheets  of  green 
copper.  His  eyes  fell  on  floating  street-signs, 
blurs  of  coloured  electrics  cut  off  from  the  in 
visible  walls  which  backed  them.  He  caught 
glimpses  of  the  softened  bulbs  of  automatic 
signs,  like  moving  gold-fish  seen  through 
frosted  glass.  Then  he  saw  more  lights, 
serried  lights,  subdued  into  balloons  of  misty 
pearl.  They  threaded  the  fa§ade  of  some 
gigantic  hotel,  like  jewel-strings  about  the  throat 
of  a  barbaric  woman.  But  he  could  not  re 
member  the  place.  And  again  he  floundered  on 
towards  the  water-front,  disquieted  with  vague 
and  foolish  thoughts,  as  much  oppressed  by  the 
orderly  streets  as  though  he  were  escaping  from 
some  sea-worn  harbour  slum  of  vice  and  out 
lawry.  He  still  wanted  his  cabin,  as  a  long- 
harried  chipmunk  wants  its  tree-hole. 

He  was  well  out  of  it,  he  told  himself  reassur 
ingly,  though  he  still  kept  wondering  why  the 
woman  had  stopped  him.  He  remembered  de 
tails  of  her  dress,  the  sense  of  assurance  and 
well-being  in  her  mere  figure  poise,  the  open  way 
in  which  her  eyes  had  met  his.  He  began  to 
wonder  why  he  had  lacked  the  audacity  to  re 
spond  to  that  clear  challenge  of  fate.  He  de 
manded  of  himself  why  he  had  run  away  from 
the  very  thing  he  had  been  seeking. 


THE  CITY  OF  PEEIL  13 

He  knew,  as  the  growl  of  the  ferry-whistles 
grew  louder,  that  he  was  nearing  the  river.  He 
felt  as  ungainly  as  a  tortoise  scuffling  back  to 
its  water-edge  of  escape,  but  his  confidence  be 
gan  to  return  to  him  as  he  found  himself  nearer 
and  nearer  his  brink  of  delivery.  He  could  per 
ceive  the  ridiculous  figure  he  had  cut.  He  could 
even  realise  that  he  had  defeated  his  own  ends. 
He  was  conscious  of  a  growing  overtone  of  dis 
content,  a  peevish  resentment  against  his  own 
white-livered  irresolution.  And  he  would  go 
aboard,  and  the  next  day  be  out  at  sea,  with  the 
mystery  of  it  all  still  unanswered. 

He  strode  on  through  the  fog.  It  was  not 
until  he  came  to  a  narrow  street-crossing  be 
tween  two  blank-windowed  warehouses  that  he 
saw  his  way  obstructed.  But  he  noticed,  as  he 
came  to  a  sudden  stop,  that  his  path  was  barred 
by  a  cab  with  an  open  door.  It  blocked  the  cross 
ing,  very  much  as  a  Neapolitan  corricolo  ma 
noeuvres  for  a  fare  by  cutting  across  a  pedes 
trian's  path. 

The  youth  drew  up  and  peered  in  through  that 
door,  with  a  slightly  quickened  pulse,  wondering 
why  the  impassive  figure  on  the  box  should  be 
thus  blocking  his  way. 

Then  he  saw  that  the  cab  was  not  empty. 

Leaning  quietly  forward  from  the  seat  was 


14  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

an  intent  and  waiting  figure — a  woman's  figure. 
It  was  the  woman  from  whom  he  had  so  ig- 
nominiously  fled. 

He  felt,  this  time,  no  horripilating  tingle  of 
shock.  His  fund  of  wonder  seemed  to  be  ex 
hausted.  He  stood  staring  at  her,  almost  ab 
stractedly,  with  the  mild  and  resigned  bewilder 
ment  of  a  man  who  has  seen  lightning  strike 
twice  in  the  same  spot. 

"Quick !"  said  the  woman,  with  an  almost  im 
perious  movement  of  her  gloved  hand. 

"What?"  asked  Lingg,  inadequately,  irrele 
vantly. 

"I  wanted  to  warn  you,"  the  woman  whis 
pered,  as  she  moved  back  on  the  cab  seat,  obvi 
ously  to  make  room  for  him.  "I  must  warn  you 
• — but  not  here." 

"Of  what?"  asked  Lingg.  He  saw  that  she 
was  quite  alone  in  the  cab. 

' '  Come ! ' '  she  commanded,  ignoring  his  ques 
tion. 

He  stepped  into  the  hooded  gloom  like  a 
coerced  schoolboy.  He  was  not  afraid,  he  as 
sured  himself.  It  was  merely  that  he  was  un 
willing  to  be  made  the  blind  tool  of  forces  he 
could  not  comprehend. 

"Of  what?"  he  repeated,  noticing  that  the 
cab  moved  forward  the  moment  the  door  had 
slammed  shut. 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  15 

"Not  to  sail  on  the  Laminian,"  said  the  wom 
an  at  his  side.  He  could  detect  a  subtle  perfume 
about  her  presence,  a  flowery  and  effeminising 
perfume  which  made  him  think  of  New  England 
village  gardens.  An  older  man  would  have 
thought  of  boudoirs. 

' '  Why  not  ? "  he  asked.  The  woman  could  see 
that  he  was  not  as  impressed  as  he  might  be. 

"It  will  not  be  safe." 

"It  never  is,  on  those  third-class  boats." 

He  insisted  on  being  literal  or  nothing. 

"But  there  are  dangers  ahead  of  you — dan 
gers  you  don't  and  can't  understand." 

"I  don't  see  how  I  can  help  that,"  said  the 
youth  of  little  imagination.  "When  the  Com 
pany  puts  me  on  a  ship  or  gives  me  a  station 
anywheres,  I've  got  to  stick  to  it." 

' '  Then  you  don 't  believe  me  ? ' ' 

"It's  not  a  matter  of  believing.  It's  more  a 
matter  of  not  understanding  you." 

A  change  seemed  to  creep  over  her,  a  light 
ening  and  relaxing  change,  such  as  would  come 
to  the  New  England  garden  he  had  thought  of 
when  it  passed  from  shadow  to  sunlight. 

"Would  you  like  to  understand  me?"  she 
asked,  turning  her  eyes  full  on  his  somewhat 
abashed  young  face.  He  blushed  and  tingled 
under  the  directness  of  her  gaze. 


16  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

"How  could  I?"  he  succeeded  in  stammering 
out. 

"Won't  you  stay  and  try?"  she  murmured, 
pregnantly. 

The  prospect  did  not  exactly  appal  him.  It 
merely  puzzled  him  now  as  something  beyond 
the  reach  of  his  delimited  imagination.  The 
curl  hadn't  been  taken  out  of  Romance,  after 
all,  he  told  himself.  He  could  see  the  brooding 
spirit  of  her,  incarnate  before  his  very  eyes, 
coifed  and  gowned  like  a  goddess.  But  the  very 
radiance  of  the  vision  made  him  doubly  afraid 
of  her. 

"I'm  afraid  I'll  have  to  get  back,"  was  his 
hesitating  rejoinder. 

"Back  where?" 

' '  To  my  ship, ' '  he  faltered. 

"But  you  mustn't!"  she  murmured,  with  a 
solicitous  hand  on  his  still  tingling  arm. 

"I've  got  to  get  back,"  he  persisted,  reaching 
and  fumbling  for  the  door. 

"But  not  yet — not  here,"  she  begged  him. 

"I  must"  he  declared,  trying  to  stand  on  his 
feet  under  the  cramping  cab-hood,  and  tugging 
at  the  door-handle. 

"Only  listen  to  me  for  a  moment,"  the  woman 
was  saying,  almost  pleadingly. 

He  allowed  her  to  draw  him  gently  back  into 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  17 

the  seat  beside  her.  But  disquiet  had  again 
taken  possession  of  him. 

"Am  I  so  terrible?"  she  asked,  with  her  hand 
still  on  his  arm.  Her  voice  was  low  and  quiet ; 
her  half-smiling  lips  were  parted  a  little,  giving 
a  touch  of  languid  abandon  to  her  otherwise 
intent  and  earnest  face.  And  here  was  the  very 
thing  he  had  been  so  restlessly  in  search  of; 
but  now  that  it  was  before  him,  within  his  grasp, 
he  was  wordlessly  afraid  of  it. 

"N — no,  you're  not  terrible,"  he  jerkily  re 
assured  her,  as  though  the  words  had  to  be  paid 
out  like  links  of  a  rusted  cable. 

"You're  not  afraid  of  me! "  she  inquired,  with 
a  disarming  soft  intimacy  of  tone  that  sent  the 
blood  once  more  rioting  through  his  veins.  He 
did  not  answer.  He  merely  gazed  at  her  in  in 
articulate  and  tingling  wonder. 

"You're  not,  are  you?"  she  persisted,  stoop 
ing  forward  and  turning  her  body  about  in  the 
cab  seat  so  that  her  face  was  directly  before 
him,  within  a  foot  of  his  own. 

'  '  No, ' '  he  managed  to  say. 

He  noticed  that  she  almost  closed  her  eyes. 

"Then  kiss  me,"  he  heard  her  low  voice  mur 
muring,  with  her  parted  red  lips  lifting  and 
creeping  audaciously  up  to  his,  her  hand  already 
on  his  shoulder. 

He  drew  back,  white  and  stunned.    It  was 


18  THE  CITY  OF  PEEIL 

beyond  reason.  It  was  so  beyond  reason  that 
it  brought  a  hundred  unkenneled  suspicions 
yelping  and  snapping  about  him.  Things  that 
once  seemed  accidental  and  trivial  took  on  a 
new  significance.  He  could  carpenter  inconse- 
quentialities  into  dim  and  towering  structures  of 
intrigue.  He  was  afraid  of  himself  and  his  sur 
roundings. 

The  woman  must  have  seen  this  the  very  mo 
ment  she  locked  her  arms  about  his  reluctant 
neck,  for  her  face  changed  and  hardened.  Even 
before  he  saw  that  change,  though,  he  was 
crowding  and  struggling  and  pulling  away  from 
her. 

The  entire  situation  was  so  unlooked-for,  so 
startling,  that  no  new  turn  of  it  could  add  to  his 
sense  of  surprise.  He  was  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  she  was  crying  out,  while  she  still  clung  to 
him,  and  that  the  cab  had  come  to  a  sudden  stop. 
He  noticed  a  figure  at  the  door  and  a  man's 
huge  hand  dart  in  towards  him  as  it  swung  open. 
And  still  again  he  heard  her  shriek  of  simulated 
fear.  It  might  even  have  been  anger— he  was 
not  sure;  he  could  not  fathom  it  all.  But  he 
felt,  dimly,  that  he  was  being  tricked  into  some 
thing  beyond  his  understanding ;  that  the  whole 
thing  was  some  sort  of  trap.  He  resented  being 
clawed  at ;  he  resented  the  way  in  which  the  man 
at  the  cab  door  was  dragging  and  pulling  him 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  19 

to  the  street.  There  was  no  longer  any  doubt 
as  to  that  intruder's  immediate  intention. 

The  wireless  operator's  one  passion  was  to 
escape,  to  fight  his  way  back  to  freedom.  He 
remembered  his  ship  and  his  waiting  station, 
and  how  Heilig,  the  engineer,  would  have  the 
laugh  on  him. 

He  was  fighting  like  a  terrier  by  this  time, 
striking  out  blindly,  in  a  frenzy  of  sheer  panic. 
He  was  stung  by  the  injustice  of  it  all,  and  kept 
calling  and  shouting  for  help  as  he  fought,  for 
tified  by  the  memory  that  his  hands  were  clean, 
that  he  had  done  nothing  amiss. 

He  was  dazed  and  bruised,  but  he  still  fought 
and  shouted,  imagining  it  was  his  opponent's 
mad  intention  to  kill  him.  He  saw  the  shifting 
figures  of  men  appear  through  the  fog,  and  stand 
about  in  a  circle,  impassively  watching  his  strug 
gles.  But  still  he  fought  and  shouted. 

His  cries  brought  a  patrolman  with  a  night 
stick  in  his  hand.  He  could  see  the  circle  dis 
rupted  and  scattered.  He  could  hear  the  re 
lieving  sound  of  the  falling  club  on  the  body  of 
the  brute  above  him,  and  sharp  oaths  and 
grunts,  and  then  cries  and  counter-cries. 

Then  a  fourth  figure  pushed  peremptorily  in 
through  the  re-formed  circle  of  onlookers,  a 
figure  not  in  uniform,  but  quick-acting  and  au 
thoritative.  This  newcomer  seemed  to  pull  the 


20  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

entangled  and  struggling  trio  apart  in  one 
breath,  as  a  child  separates  a  puzzle-picture.  He 
flung  back  the  clubbing  patrolman.  He  swept 
aside  the  still  fighting  second  figure.  He 
dragged  the  fallen  operator  to  his  feet,  with  a 
sharp  question  or  two  at  the  other  man,  who  was 
blowing  his  nose  on  a  handkerchief  maculated 
with  blood.  Then  he  called  out  to  the  waiting 
cab-driver:  "To  the  police  station,  straight!" 
and  all  but  carried  the  dazed  operator  back  into 
the  waiting  carriage. 

He  turned  at  the  step,  before  following  the 
operator  into  that  cab,  and  spoke  a  crisp  word 
or  two  to  the  still  blinking  patrolman.  Then  he 
lurched  angrily  and  impatiently  into  the  cab  and 
slammed  the  door  shut  as  they  went  clattering 
and  swinging  away  through  the  heavy  fog. 

He  left  the  patrolman  gazing  after  him 
through  the  gloom,  his  idle  night-stick  dangling 
from  his  wrist  like  a  bird's  broken  wing. 

"Can  you  beat  it!"  gasped  the  astounded  of 
ficer  to  the  other  man  busy  prodding  and  feeling 
his  own  body,  very  much  as  a  housewife  might 
explore  a  market-fowl. 

"You'd  beat  it,  all  right!"  retorted  the  other, 
disgustedly,  with  seismic-like  rumblings  of  the 
chest.  "You  hare-brained  bulls 'd  beat  any 
thing!" 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  21 

"But  what's  this  all  about,  anyway?"  de 
manded  the  bewildered  officer,  shouldering  out 
through  the  crowd  with  the  other  man  at  his 
heels. 

"God  only  knows,"  was  that  other  man's  re 
tort,  morosely  brushing  his  battered  hat  with  the 
palm  of  his  hand. 

"But  who  is  he?" 

"Who's  who?" 

"The  guy  who  flashed  that  Central  Office 
shield." 

"One  o'  Wilkie's  men." 

"Wilkie?" 

"Chief  Wilkie,  of  the  Washington  Bureau; 
and  we've  made  a  nice  mess  o'  this  little  coup  o' 
his  between  us!" 

"Then  where 's  the  rib  figurin'  in  it?"  asked 
the  still  perplexed  officer. 

"The  rib?" 

"The  woman  with  the  Fifth  Avenue  make 
up." 

"Oh,  that's  Cherry  Purcelle — she's  the  come- 
on  for  the  Washington  Bureau  people." 

"Bureau — what  Bureau?"  asked  the  officer, 
still  in  the  dark. 

"The  Secret  Service  Bureau,  you  pin-head!" 
The  man  speaking  had  just  discovered  a  rib 
abrasion  that  made  him  wince  with  pain. 

"Then  why  fell  didn't  you  put  me  wise?    I 


22  THE  CITY  OF  PERIL 

might  Ve  fanned  the  bean-boxes  off  some  o'  you 
folks!" 

* '  You  make  me  sick ! ' '  said  the  disgusted  one, 
still  preoccupiedly  feeling  about  a  bruised  shoul 
der.  "What  d'you  suppose  it's  called  Secret 
Service  for,  if  you've  got  to  advertise  it  on  every 
street-corner?" 

The  officer  was  slow  to  comprehend  the  situa 
tion. 

"But  I  thought  Wilkie  only  muckraked  round 
after  counterfeiters." 

"He  does  any  old  thing  his  Uncle  Sam  sets 
him  at." 

"Then  what 're  they  holdin'  up  that  quiet- 
lookin'  young  feller  for?  What 're  they  runnin' 
Mm  in  for,  anyway?" 

"Mebbe  they  don't  want  him  to  sail  to-mor 
row.  ' ' 

"But  why  shouldn't  he  sail  to-morrow?  Has 
he  done  anything?" 

"Oh,  cut  it  out! — cut  it  out!  and  get  me  to 
the  nearest  drugstore.  I  hate  dirty  work  like 
this!" 

"Then  why 're  you  doin'  it?" 

The  other  man  did  not  answer,  and  the  ques 
tion  was  repeated. 

"War's  war!"  was  all  he  said.  And  he  emit 
ted  the  laconism  as  though  he  had  no  love  for  the 
subject  from  which  it  sprang. 


THE  CITY  OF  PERIL  23 

"You  may  as  well  put  me  wise,"  suggested 
the  still  waiting  officer. 

"I  said  this  was  Secret  Service,  didn't  I?" 
grunted  the  other.  ' '  Where  'd  you  say  that  drug 
store  was?" 


CHAPTER  H 

THE  SPABK   IN  THE   GAP 

you  the  operator?"  asked  a  passenger 
in  a  black  rain-coat,  blocking  the  doorway  of  the 
Laminian's  wireless-room. 

The  fog  of  the  night  before  had  given  way  to 
a  driving  rain,  like  a  sulky  woman  who  finally 
and  openly  surrenders  to  tears.  New  York  lay 
behind  the  Laminian  and  her  passengers,  seem 
ing,  under  the  soft  torrent  of  those  tears,  a 
many-towered  city  of  loaf-sugar  which  dissolved 
lower  and  lower  into  the  flat  line  of  the  horizon. 

The  stranger  in  the  doorway  repeated  his 
question. 

"I'm  going  to  be,"  came  the  answer  from  the 
coatless  figure  bent  over  its  mystic  apparatus. 
He  had  not  so  much  as  turned  to  face  his  inter 
locutor. 

"Mean  it's  your  first  run?"  inquired  the  huge 
and  genial  spirit  of  the  doorway.  This  ques 
tion,  like  his  first,  remained  unanswered.  So 
he  repeated  it  in  a  tone  of  mild  and  attained 
humility. 

24 


THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP          25 

"I  can't  be  an  operator  until  I've  got  some 
thing  to  operate  on,"  said  the  voice  from  the 
room.  Its  barbed  curtness  of  tone  no  more 
reached  the  quick  of  the  newcomer  than  water 
could  reach  a  duck's  breast. 

"Then  you're  not  sending  yet?"  he  amiably 
persisted,  with  his  shoulder  against  the  door 
post. 

"Not  till  I've  tuned  up  this  pile  of  junk!" 
was  the  preoccupied  answer  of  the  operator, 
bent  low  over  his  work. 

"You  don't  mean  she's  off  her  trolley,  our 
first  hour  out?"  asked  the  other.  His  patience 
seemed  infinite.  He  still  stood  there,  studying 
the  shirt-sleeved  figure  in  the  centre  of  the  room. 

"I  can't  make  her  spark  right.  And  I've  got 
a  damp  helix  and  a  motor  running  weak!" 

The  words  were  followed  by  a  gasp  of  exas 
peration  and  the  rattle  of  a  tool  flung  to  the 
floor. 

The  huge-shouldered  man  in  the  raincoat 
made  no  effort  to  conceal  his  disappointment. 
It  was  what  one  deserved,  he  conceded,  for  trav 
elling  in  such  a  punk-riveted,  slush-pitted,  coal- 
eating  second-rater! 

But  he  remained  up  on  the  bridge-deck.  He 
continued  to  lean  nonchalantly  against  the  drip 
ping  rail,  peering  out  from  under  bushy  iron- 
grey  eyebrows  drawn  close  to  the  flat-bridged 


26  THE  SPAKK  IN  THE  GAP 

nose,  unmindful  of  the  rain  that  beat  in  from 
the  northeast  as  the  Laminian  plowed  her  way 
down  through  the  Narrows  and  the  Lower  Bay. 
His  red-rimmed,  many-wrinkled  eyes  were  still 
on  the  horizon,  and  his  massive,  russet  hand  was 
still  clamped  on  the  white  awning-stanchion  as 
Sandy  Hook  was  passed  and  Atlantic  High 
lands  melted  down  into  a  vague  monotone  of 
rain-swept  loneliness. 

Beyond  the  ship's  officers,  who  fretted  uncer 
tainly  back  and  forth  along  the  bridge,  his  figure 
was  the  only  one  on  the  deserted  deck.  As  the 
mist  shut  off  the  last  dull  line  of  Navesink,  and 
the  nose  of  the  steamer  swung  southward,  rising 
and  dipping  in  the  long  ground-swell  of  the  open 
Atlantic,  the  watching  man  gave  vent  to  an  in 
voluntary  sigh  of  relief. 

But  he  still  stood  there,  in  the  slanting  rain, 
while  the  deck  beneath  his  feet  shook  with  the 
purposeful  throb  of  the  engines  under  their 
"full  steam  ahead,"  and  the  pulsating  and  pon 
derous  thing  of  steel,  "carrying  a  bone  in  her 
teeth,"  shouldered  her  way  on  through  a  ghost 
like  world  of  sea  and  rain.  She  seemed,  for  all 
her  pitted  and  rust-stained  plates,  dignified  with 
some  new-found  sense  of  mystery,  of  austere 
and  unknown  missions,  as  she  sought  out  her 
predestined  path  through  the  grey  loneliness  of 
her  universe.  She  seemed  humanised,  endowed 


THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP  27 

with  the  will  of  a  sentient  and  reasoning  being. 

The  stranger  looked  about  quickly,  as  the 
thick-necked,  short-legged  captain,  in  dripping 
oilskins,  leaned  over  the  port  bridge-gate  and 
called  back  along  the  empty  deck: 

"You,  there! — are  you  gettin'  anything?" 

There  was  no  answer  to  his  call. 

"Aren't  you  gettin'  that  ship  out  there?"  he 
demanded  peremptorily,  as  he  flung  the  rain 
drops  from  his  cap-brim  with  a  bull-like  shake 
of  the  head. 

He  leaned  on  the  wet  rail  and  waited.  But 
still  there  was  no  answer  to  his  question.  So  he 
repeated  it,  this  time  in  a  bellow.  Then  came 
the  sound  of  a  chair  being  pushed  back  on  deck- 
boards  in  the  wireless-room,  and  the  rattle  of  a 
quickly  opened  shutter. 

"I'll  have  her  in  five  minutes,"  answered  the 
operator.  The  shutter  closed  again,  sharply. 
Captain  Yandel,  the  master  of  the  Laminian, 
mumbled  under  his  breath,  and  turned  back  to 
the  bridge. 

The  man  in  the  raincoat  swung  casually  about 
on  his  heel  and  studied  the  operator's  station, 
where  the  after-deck  superstructure  rose  squat 
and  square  as  a  scow-cabin  out  of  the  bleached 
flooring  of  the  weather-deck.  He  peered  up  to 
where  the  "T"  aerials  of  phosphor-bronze  wire 
on  their  ashwood  stretchers  bridged  the  two 


25          THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP 

mastheads;  lie  followed  the  course  of  those 
united  wires  as  they  led  down  into  the  square 
little  station. 

Ne\;  to  :hia  station,  on  the  rigV.i.  wn«  iho 
ship's  lamp-room.  In  front  of  it  stood  the  flag- 
locker.  Farther  along  the  deck,  he  noted,  caine 
the  chart-room,  and  then  the  captain's  cabin. 
In  front  of  that  again  was  the  wheel-house  and 
the  canvas-strapped  bridge. 

^ ':•.'.'•>•  y:  ?go  an  officer,  unsheathing  a  class, 
was  peering  out  TO  sea.  The  stranger  t'o'/.owed 
the  direction  of  the  pointed  glass  and  made  out 
the  ponderously  rocking  mass  of  a  battleship 
as  she  crept  up  on  them  through  the  mist  There 
was  something  ominous  and  authoritative  about 
her,  with  her  sullen  turrets  and  her  monotone  of 
eolonr.  as  >V.e  belched  OUl  her  b'.aek  smoke- 
plumes  that  hung  low  on  the  sky-line. 

Then  the  stranger  in  the  dripping  raincoat 
swung  sharply  about  and  looked  up  at  the  mast 
head.  As  he  did  so  he  saw  a  nervous  blue  spark 
appear  ar.d  disappear  at  the  ends  of  the  taut- 
strung  aerials  that  cradled  hack  and  forth  with 
every  dip  and  plunge  of  the  ship.  A  muffled 
crash  and  clatter  of  sound  echoed  out  of  the 
elosed  station.;  a  simultaneous  kiss  and  enu'kle 
of  broken  noise  came  from  the  masthead. 

It  v^.  -  :'  .  v,  .-:.  -<  operatoi  at  las:  working 
his  key.  It  was  the  Hertzian  wave*,  erupting 


THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP  29 

from  the  mended  coils,  winging  their  way  with 
the  speed  of  light  out  through  the  loneliness  of 
the  rain-fogged  afternoon. 

Then  came  a  space  of  silence,  interrupted  by 
the  sudden  appearance  of  the  operator,  still  in 
his  shirt-sleeves,  with  his  coat  held  over  his  head 
like  a  hood.  He  strode  forward  to  the  bridge- 
gate,  where  he  was  met  by  the  waiting  captain. 
Together  they  bent  over  a  sheet  from  a  tinted 
form-pad.  Then  the  hooded  figure  hurried  back 
to  the  station,  and  the  slam  of  a  door  punctuated 
his  disappearance  from  sight. 

The  man  in  the  raincoat  turned  back  to  the 
battleship,  and  stood  thoughtfully  regarding  the 
bursts  of  foam  on  her  plunging  cutwater  and  the 
intermittent  shower  of  spray  as  she  rose  and 
dipped  in  the  cross-swell.  Through  the  engine- 
room  skylight  behind  him  came  the  call  of  sub 
terranean  voices,  the  busy  clangour  of  iron 
scraping  on  iron,  the  quick  slam  of  furnace 
doors,  magnified  in  the  open  shaft-head  to 
sounds  of  titanic  proportions.  As  he  stood  there 
a  deck  steward  mounted  the  brass-plated  stair 
way,  carrying  a  tray  with  coffee-cake  and  steam 
ing  cups  of  tea. 

The  man  at  the  rail  wheeled  about  quickly  at 
the  unexpected  sound  of  a  voice  so  close  behind 
him.  He  declined  the  proffered  refreshment 
bmskly  and  swung  back  to  his  earlier  position, 


30          THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP 

staring  out  at  the  battleship.  The  steward  took 
up  his  tray  and  passed  on  to  the  operator's  door, 
where,  adroitly  balancing  on  one  foot,  he  tapped 
on  the  panel  with  the  other. 

The  door  opened,  and  this  time  the  white  glare 
of  the  electric  light  shone  along  the  wet  deck. 
The  man  at  the  rail,  twisting  his  head,  without 
any  betraying  movement  of  the  body,  succeeded 
in  getting  a  more  satisfactory  glimpse  of  the 
room. 

Behind  the  door  swung  a  curtain  of  soiled 
denim,  partly  withdrawn.  Squatting  on  a  can 
vas  camp-chair  before  his  unpainted  work-table 
was  the  operator.  His  wireless  helmet-receiver, 
or  "set,"  was  clasped  over  his  ears  and  held 
close  to  the  bent  head  by  a  chaplet  of  glimmering 
metal.  Against  each  "receiver"  the  operator 
pressed  a  white  handkerchief,  to  shut  away  out 
side  noises. 

His  face  was  lean,  clear-cut,  touched  with 
vigour.  It  was  too  vital  and  youthful  in  texture 
to  be  called  leathery,  though  it  was  sunburnt 
to  what  seemed  almost  a  coffee-colour,  contrast 
ing  strangely  with  the  ruddiness  of  the  open- 
weathered  ship's  officers  about  him.  He  had, 
too,  a  touch  of  the  ascetic  in  the  high  brow  and 
the  wide  cheek-bones,  his  leanness  of  jowl  giving 
one  the  impression  of  generous  reservoirs  of 
energy  greedily  and  continually  drained  by 


THE  SPAEK  IN  THE  GAP  31 

some  ever-adventuring  thirst  for  activity. 
Though  his  eyes  were  impersonally  studious 
and  abstracted,  there  was  a  redeeming  line  or 
two  of  humour  about  the  mouth.  His  hands 
were  long  and  bony  and  slender,  with  some 
thing  persistently  scholar-like  about  them,  for 
all  their  scarred  and  calloused  and  sinewed 
strength.  This  impression  was  further  borne 
out  by  the  restless,  uncoordinated,  and  at  times, 
almost  wolf-like  restlessness  of  the  spare  and 
nervous  body  as  he  passed  back  and  forth  in 
the  narrow  cabin.  There  seemed  something 
unsubjugated  in  his  long  strides,  as  though  he 
and  his  great  length  of  limb  had  not  yet  grown 
.used  to  confined  places.  This  sense  of  an 
achieved  repression  was  strengthened  by  the 
touch  of  audacity  about  the  wide  and  clear-see 
ing  eyes  as  he  circled  his  room  or  sat  sprawl- 
ingly  before  his  instruments — of  an  audacity 
tempered  with  intelligence. 

He  nodded  cheerfully  enough  to  the  steward, 
however,  at  the  sight  of  the  coffee-cake  and  the 
steaming  tea.  Then  he  turned  back  to  his  re- 
sponder.  The  steward,  leaving  his  tea  and  cake 
on  the  seat  of  a  broken-armed  steamer-chair, 
went  on  his  way,  and  the  deck  was  again  de 
serted. 

"Why  aren't  you  getting  the  Princeton, 
there?"  Captain  Yandel  once  more  demanded 


32          THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP 

from  the  bridge-gate.  It  was  plain  to  see  his 
feeling  for  the  new  operator  was  not  an  over- 
kindly  one. 

The  new  operator  showed  his  head  round  one 
corner  of  the  stateroom. 

" I'll  try  again!" 

Once  more  came  the  hiss  and  rattle  and  crackle 
of  the  spark,  and  once  more  the  lean  and  sun 
tanned  face  appeared  round  a  corner  of  the 
stateroom. 

"He's  busy  talking  to  the  navy-yard!" 

"To  what?" 

"To  the  navy-yard." 

" What 'd  he  tell  you?" 

The  new  operator  hesitated  for  a  moment  or 
two  before  answering.  His  singularly  quiet  eyes 
were  resting  on  Captain  Yandel's  nose,  for  it 
was  a  remarkable  nose,  something  between  a 
cardinal  and  magenta  colour,  stippled  with  the 
brighter  hues  of  countless  little  broken  veins. 

"He  told  me  to  shut  up,  and  cut  out!"  he 
answered  at  last,  editing  the  irate  officer's 
blasphemy  out  of  the  message. 

The  passenger  in  the  raincoat  fell  to  pacing 
the  open  deck.  He  stopped  once  or  twice,  quite 
casually,  to  glance  in  at  the  wireless  apparatus. 
Then,  seeing  that  the  operator  had  taken  off  his 
ear-phones  and  was  leaning  back  in  his  canvas 
chair,  giving  his  open  and  undivided  attention 


THE  SPARK  IN  THE  GAP          83 

to  the  tea  and  coffee-cake,  the  stranger  came  to 
a  stop  and  leaned  companionably  against  the 
jamb  of  the  open  door. 

The  young  man  glanced  up  at  the  huge  figure 
darkening  his  cabin.  He  did  so  with  no  outward 
sign  of  emotion.  He  had,  apparently,  become 
inured  to  the  wondering  eyes  of  the  passengers, 
and  he  had  his  own  ends  to  pursue.  So  he  went 
on  with  his  coffee-cake  in  silence. 

"  Could  you  take  those  messages  of  mine 
now?"  asked  the  man  in  the  raincoat. 

"Any  old  time  now,"  answered  the  operator, 
without  so  much  as  a  second  glance. 

"I  settle  for  it  with  you,  don't  I?"  asked  the 
stranger,  drawing  out  a  roll  of  bills.  The  for 
midable  dimensions  of  that  roll  were  lost  on  the 
man  bending  over  the  teacup. 

"Leave  your  name  and  cabin  number,  and  pay 
the  purser.  They  don't  seem  to  trust  operators 
on  this  floating  palace!  All  I  do  is  stamp  the 
time-check  on  the  message  and  send  it  out." 

He  took  the  two  messages,  stamped  them,  and 
read  them  aloud,  before  pencilling  the  number  of 
words  on  a  corner  of  each  sheet  and  stabbing 
it  on  his  "send"  hook.  He  read,  perfunctorily: 

VARREL,  Sixty  Wall  Street,  New  York. 

Our  man  on  board  Laminian  bound  Puerto  Locombia.  Wire 
Washington.  Will  have  him  held  by  authorities  to  await  in 
structions.  DUFFY. 


34          THE  SPAEK  IN  THE  GAP 

The  second  message  lie  read  off  quite  as  hasti 
ly,  and  with  equal  nonchalance : 

DOCTOR  BERNADO  MORALES,  Mobile. 

Advise  Charleston  wireless  to  relay  Laminian  southward 
bound  if  shipment  of  laundry  equipment  and  steel  ties  left 
Mobile  for  Ganley  and  date  of  sailing.  MICHAEL  DUFFY. 

The  stranger  waited  a  moment  at  the  door,  as 
though  expecting  some  further  word  or  move 
ment  from  the  operator. 

But  the  man  of  the  key  was  already  busy  over 
his  " tuner."  So  the  stranger  in  the  raincoat 
turned  away,  with  a  look  of  mild  exasperation 
in  his  predaceous  and  puzzled  little  eyes. 


CHAPTER   HI 

THE   CALL  FKOM  WITHOUT 

IT  was  four  hours  later  that  the  man  in  the 
raincoat  reappeared  on  the  bridge  deck.  The 
night  was  thick,  and  McKinnon,  the  operator, 
worked  with  his  coat  off  and  his  door  hooked 
back  against  the  wall-plates. 

He  looked  up  for  only  a  moment  as  he  saw 
the  huge  figure  once  more  confronting  him.  The 
stranger,  unrebuffed  by  his  silence,  stepped 
calmly  inside. 

"Anything  come  in  over  this  machinery  o' 
yours  for  me?"  he  inquired  as  he  took  out  a 
cigar,  pushed  his  hat  back  on  his  head,  and 
struck  a  light.  The  operator  looked  up  with 
his  habitually  abstracted  and  unseeing  stare. 

"What's  the  name!"  he  asked,  once  more 
studying  his  "tuner." 

The  other  was  indignantly  silent  for  a  mo 
ment;  then  he  laughed  a  little,  forgivingly. 
"Duffy,"  he  answered.  "Michael  Duffy." 

The  operator  shook  his  head;  the  movement 

85 


36        THE  CALL  FROM  WITHOUT 

was  followed  by  another  minute  or  two  of  si 
lence. 

"It  might 've  come  under  the  name  of  Cody, 
Richard  Cody,"  explained  the  intruder.  Some 
thing  in  the  younger  man's  smile  caused  him  to 
add:  "You  see,  that's  our  firm  name,  Duffy 
&  Cody." 

An  alias,  south  of  the  twentieth  parallel,  oft 
en  enough  carries  its  own  explanation.  The 
Laminian's  bow  was  pointing  towards  a  land  of 
patriots  where  a  change  of  name  only  too  often 
synchronised  with  a  change  of  continents.  But 
McKinnon  merely  gave  a  shake  of  the  head.  It 
was  several  minutes  before  he  glanced  about  at 
the  other  man,  with  a  closeness  of  scrutiny  that 
might  have  been  impertinent  had  it  seemed  less 
frankly  impersonal. 

"There's  nothing  in  for  passengers  this 
trip,"  he  announced  as  he  turned  back  to  his 
"tuner."  He  drummed  impatiently  on  the  ta 
ble-edge  for  a  moment  before  readjusting  his 
helmet-receiver.  But  the  huge-shouldered  in 
truder  was  not  to  be  so  easily  shaken  off. 

"Your  machine's  working,  isn't  it?"  he 
asked,  preoccupied  with  an  inspection  of  the 
end  of  his  cigar.  This  cigar  was  soft  and  thick 
and  short,  like  his  own  fingers.  Despite  its  dark 
and  baleful  colour,  he  kept  inhaling  and  expel 
ling  great  lungsful  of  it  as  he  talked.  The 


THE  CALL  FROM  WITHOUT        37 

operator  idly  registered  the  mental  decision 
that  cigars  such  as  those  were  surely  of  Hon- 
durian  make. 

"I  saw  you  giving  a  message  to  the  captain, 
didn  't  I  r '  And  again  the  bellows-like  lungs  ex 
pelled  their  languid  cloud. 

"That  was  not  to  take  on  coffee  at  Puerto 
Locombia ! ' '  answered  McKinnon.  He  delivered 
himself  of  this  information  casually,  almost 
with  amusement,  though  his  half-averted  eyes 
were  not  unconscious  of  the  effect  produced  by 
what  he  had  said. 

The  stranger  was  suddenly  offering  him  one 
of  the  thick,  short  cigars.  A  shadow  seemed 
to  have  lifted  from  his  face. 

"I  don't  smoke,"  said  the  ungracious  man  at 
the  key,  seeming  to  draw  back  into  his  shell  of 
reticence.  "And  I'm  busy  sending." 

"You  mean  you're  actually  talking  to  New 
York  now?"  amiably  persisted  the  other.  The 
operator's  hand  went  out  to  the  switch,  black 
against  the  unpainted  boards,  and  flanked  on 
either  side  by  a  fuse. 

"I've  been  tuning  for  Atlantic  City.  We're 
just  picking  him  up,"  he  answered  as  his  fin 
gers  hovered  over  the  starting-box  lever, 
clamped  to  the  same  pine  boards,  above  the 
switch.  A  sudden  deep  buzzing  filled  the  cabin. 
It  grew  louder  and  louder  as  the  lever  crossed 


38 

farther  and  farther  down  on  the  contact-pins. 
It  sounded  like  a  hive  of  bees  stirred  into  anger. 
The  stranger  peered  in  at  the  dynamo  under  the 
operating  table. 

1  'So  you're  talking!"  he  murmured  medita 
tively,  appreciatively. 

4 '  How  long  will  you  be  in  communication  with 
them!"  he  went  on  after  a  second  or  two  of 
thought. 

The  other  raised  an  earphone  to  listen,  as 
the  question  was  repeated.  Then  he  turned  back 
and  bent  over  the  carborundum  tip  between  his 
responder-points. 

"We're  never  really  out  of  touch  with  'em,  on 
this  run,"  he  retorted.  He  seemed  to  resent 
his  own  increasing  concessions  to  the  other's 
imperturbable  good-nature. 

"You  mean  you  can  call  up  New  York  from 
the  Caribbean?" 

The  operator  put  down  his  earphones  and 
shook  out  his  small  cardboard  box  of  carborun 
dum  fragments,  picking  through  them  for  a 
fresh  piece  for  his  responder-points.  It  seemed 
apparent  enough,  to  the  patient-eyed  man  across 
the  cabin  from  him,  that  he  was  neither  friendly 
nor  unfriendly ;  it  was  simply  that  he  was  busy. 

"No,  I  don't  mean  that,  exactly.  New  York 
never  works  south  of  Atlantic  City,  as  a  rule. 
He's  got  too  much  to  handle  there,  too  many 


THE  CALL  FEOM  WITHOUT        39 

ships  going  in  and  out.  But  New  York  can  re 
lay  to  Galilee  and  then  down  to  NF — that's  Nor 
folk — and  from  there  on  to  Hatteras.  Then 
Hatteras  could  throw  a  message  over  to  Charles 
ton,  and  if  we're  depending  on  land  stations 
alone,  Charleston  can  relay  to  Savannah,  and 
then  Savannah  can  get  in  touch  with  the  naval 
station  at  Saint  Augustine." 

"And  then  where?"  asked  the  stranger,  lean 
ing  back  against  the  cabin  wall. 

"Then  Key  West  could  catch  it  up,  and  if 
there  wasn't  a  gunboat  or  an  Atlas  fruit  liner 
crawling  somewhere  around  Cuba,  why,  the 
navy  yard  at  Guantanamo  could  get  it  relayed 
over  to  Limon,  and  from  Limon,  in  decent 
weather,  you'd  catch  the  navy  yard  operator 
at  Colon.  And  if  the  night  was  clear,  you'd 
run  one  chance  in  a  hundred  of  waking  up  the 
Cocoanut  Trail  aerials  behind  Puerto  Locom- 
bia." 

There  was  a  moment  or  two  of  silence. 

"Could  Puerto  Locombia  get  anything  out 
side  of  a  passing  ship?  Kingston,  for  instance?" 

"Kingston  never  had  wireless — it's  prohibit 
ed  by  the  British  Government." 

"Then  there's  New  Orleans,  on  a  pinch." 

"There's  too  much  map  between,"  explained 
the  operator.  He  gathered  up  his  box  of  scat 
tered  carborundum. 


40        THE  CALL  FROM  WITHOUT 

"Queer,  isn't  it,  getting  words  on  a  tape  that 
way,  four  hundred  miles  off?"  said  the  stran 
ger.  He  scratched  his  huge  head  in  a  sort  of 
mute  astonishment,  as  he  surveyed  the  cabinful 
of  apparatus. 

"We  don't  use  a  tape,"  the  other  corrected, 
waving  a  preoccupied  hand  toward  the  inscrip 
tion  on  the  condenser  case.  "We're  De  Forest! 
And  we  don't  claim  to  talk  around  the  world 
yet." 

The  stranger  was  peering  contentedly  and 
aimlessly  about  the  crowded  little  cabin. 
"Where  the  devil  d'you  suppose  that  cruiser 
was  off  to?"  he  next  inquired. 

"That's  what  I've  been  trying  to  find  out." 

"They  all  carry  wireless?"  asked  the  other 
as  he  sent  an  exhalation  of  pungent  cigar  smoke 
ceilingward. 

"Yes;  but  they're  not  aching  to  talk  just  yet. 
Wait  till  they've  been  lying  down  there  in  the 
heat  for  three  months.  They'll  be  calling  all 
night,  just  for  the  sake  of  seeing  something  do 
ing  with  a  coherer  again.  They'll  kai-tow  to  a 
coal-tug,  just  to  pick  up  a  scrap  of  outside 
news." 

The  stranger,  who  seemed  well  satisfied  with 
what  he  had  learned,  remained  silent  for  a  mo 
ment  or  two. 


THE  CALL  FROM  WITHOUT        41 

"By  the  way,  could  you  take  a  message  for 
New  Orleans  to-night?" 

"I  could  take  it  all  right,  if  you're  willing  to 
prepay  land  charges." 

"I'll  pay  anything  you  say,  so  long  as  you 
get  me  in  touch  with  my  people  there.  I  want 
to  ask  Jean  Careche,  at  the  St.  Charles,  just 
when  a  shipment  of  oil  and  mill  shafting  got  out 
of  that  port." 

"Wait  a  minute,  then,  until  I  get  Atlantic 
City  again.  You  can  be  writing  out  your  mes 
sage  and  I  '11  get  the  time-check  on  it. ' ' 

McKinnon  bent  over  his  table,  with  a  wrinkled 
brow,  and  started  to  "call."  As  he  caught  the 
lever-handle  of  the  huge  key  in  his  fingers  and 
worked  it  deliberately,  yet  slowly,  up  and  down 
—he  was  sending  "strong" — the  sudden  blue 
splash  of  flame  exploded  and  leaped  and 
hissed  across  the  spark-gap,  from  one  brass- 
knobbed  discharging-rod  to  the  other.  It  filled 
the  roughly  improvised  station  with  a  sound 
like  the  rattle  of  musketry.  The  ceiling  and 
walls  of  the  room,  crusted  with  many  paintings 
of  white  lead,  mirrored  and  refracted  the  pur 
plish-blue  flashes.  A  faint  ozonic  odour,  not  un 
like  a  subliminated  smell  of  brimstone,  filled  the 
air. 

The  operator  threw  off  his  switch  again  and 
listened  intently,  with  his  two  handkerchiefs 


42        THE  CALL  FROM  WITHOUT 

muffling  his  earphones.  Then  he  suddenly 
swung  about  and  looked  at  the  man  behind  him. 

1  'That  cruiser's  going  to  Culebra,  off  Porto 
Rico.  She's  ordered  south  on  account  of  the 
Locombian  trouble." 

' 'You  don't  mean  she's  going  to  mix  up  in 
that  mess?"  the  intruder  cried  with  a  note  of 
disgust. 

"No;  Atlantic  City  says  she's  just  going  to 
lie  there  and  wait  for  instructions  from  Wash 
ington." 

The  operator  turned  back  to  his  table  without 
apparently  noticing  the  interest  in  the  other 
man 's  eyes.  He  sat  seemingly  detached  and  un 
conscious  of  any  presence  in  the  room  except 
that  of  the  mysterious  spirit  which  came  and 
went  at  a  touch  of  his  hand.  A  smile  began  to 
play  about  his  mouth  as  he  listened.  It  was 
held  there  in  suspension,  while  his  gaze  shifted 
from  side  to  side,  vivaciously,  in  response  to 
that  far-off  and  mysterious  voice  that  was 
winging  its  invisible  way  across  SQ  many  miles 
of  rain-washed  sea  and  emptiness,  to  creep 
along  a  slender  thread  of  metal  into  his  closed 
and  crowded  cabin. 

He  still  seemed  unconscious  of  the  mounting 
look  of  determination,  of  obdurate  belligerency, 
that  smouldered  up  into  the  square-jawed  face 
of  the  watching  stranger  as  his  eyes  travelled 


THE  CALL  FROM  WITHOUT        43 

from  a  wall  map  of  the  Caribbean  down  to  the 
brass  key,  and  then  back  to  the  map  again. 

"You'd  think  our  Uncle  Samuel  had  enough 
troubles  without  trying  to  play  school-teacher 
to  those  dinky  little  fire-eaters  down  there,"  he 
meditatively  ventured  as  he  took  out  another 
of  his  black  Hondurian  cigars,  and  once  more 
fell  to  studying  the  map  of  the  Caribbean. 

The  operator,  bent  low  over  his  apparatus, 
did  not  deign  to  answer  him. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  MAN  ON  BOA.BD 

" YOU'VE  made  this  trip  before?"  observed 
the  stranger,  studying  the  man  before  him  with 
the  same  calm  and  half-closed  eyes  that  he  had 
bent  on  the  faded  wall-map.  He  seemed  as 
strangely  disturbed  by  his  companion's  note  of 
quiet  authority  as  he  was  by  his  incongruously 
sunburnt  face  and  his  unseemly  length  of  limb. 

" Never  on  this  tub!"  McKinnon  responded, 
with  a  contemptuous  side  glance  about  his 
station. 

The  stranger  followed  that  glance  as  it  circled 
the  crowded  and  disordered  room.  It  was  both 
a  sleeping-cabin  and  an  operating  office.  Under 
the  wide  shelf  that  supported  a  double  row  of 
Leyden  jars,  surmounted  in  turn  by  the  De  For 
est  helix,  was  the  operator's  narrow  berth.  To 
ward  the  foot  of  this  berth,  below  the  condenser, 
stood  an  enameled  washbowl  and  a  litter  of 
tools.  Next  to  these  was  a  wooden-slatted  trunk, 
on  which  lay  a  clutter  of  recently  unpacked 

44 


THE  MAN  ON  BOARD  45 

clothing,  a  pair  of  canvas-covered  dumbbells,  a 
shaving  set,  and  a  tin  box  of  photographs. 
Against  the  farther  wall,  half  way  to  the  door, 
and  directly  in  front  of  the  dynamo,  stood  a 
broken  steamer  chair.  In  front  of  it  was  the 
rough  pine  table  at  which  the  operator  sat  and 
worked.  On  this  table  stood  the  tuning-box,  with 
its  mysterious  rows  of  numerals  along  the  three 
slots  in  which  lever-heads  moved  back  and  forth, 
the  great,  long-handled  despatching  instrument, 
like  a  Brobdingnagian  model  of  a  telegraph  key, 
and  the  delicately  mounted  little  responder,  the 
nerve  center  of  the  wireless  system.  Above 
this,  on  the  outside  wall,  stood  the  switchboard. 
It  was  of  unpainted  pine,  like  the  table.  Set 
in  it,  near  the  top,  was  the  starting-box,  with 
its  broken  and  roughly  spliced  lever,  and  below 
it  the  switch-arm  itself,  standing  between  its 
two  protecting  fuses.  At  the  end  of  the  table 
was  the  faded  wall-map  of  the  Caribbean  and  a 
shallow  clothes-locker.  Above  this  was  tacked 
a  lithograph  of  a  stage  dancer,  pointing  with  a 
pink-satined  toe  to  other  and  brighter  worlds. 
It  was  a  strange  medley  of  the  obvious  and  the 
inscrutable,  of  the  commonplace  and  the  mys 
terious. 

"How'd  you  get  aboard  this  tub,  anyway!'* 
the  stranger  suddenly  asked,  with  a  sympathetic 
wag  of  the  head. 


46  THE  MAN  ON  BOARD 

"I  needed  the  money.  But  I  never  thought 
I'd  have  to  face  a  mess  like  this."  And  the 
new  operator  disgustedly  waved  an  arm  about 
the  room. 

The  stranger  was  meditatively  rubbing  his 
pendulous  chin. 

"You  don't  like  the  work,  eh?" 

"It's  good  enough  when  you've  got  a  decent 
station.  But  this  room  isn't  fit  for  a  pig  to  live 
in!  Look  at  that  box  of  a  sleeping-berth !  It's 
worse  than  a  coffin!  And  I'm  going  to  kick  a 
board  out  of  that  cabin  wall  if  they  don't  get 
a  ventilator  tube  in  here — it's  like  sleeping  in 
a  dough-box!  And  look  at  that  bunged-up  tu 
ner  !  And  that  operating-table,  that 's  never  seen 
a  coat  of  paint ;  and  that  switchboard — nothing 
but  raw  pine!  Why,  nine  of  the  connecters  in 
those  Leyden  jars  turned  out  to  be  broken,  after 
I'd  struck  this  place  at  noon.  I  had  to  patch 
them  up  with  all  the  washbowl  chains  from  the 
first  cabins  as  we  came  down  the  bay.  I  got 
on  to  that  dodge  aboard  the  Prinz  Joachim." 

11  She's  a  real  boat!"  interpolated  the  stran 
ger. 

The  young  operator  was  wistfully  nodding 
his  head.  '  *  They  carry  a  German  band,  and  an 
ice  machine,  and  free  beer  for  the  officers." 

"But  you  can  make  this  snug  enough,"  the 
other  soothed. 


THE  MAN  ON  BOAED  47 

"Snug!  Why,  this  place  looked  like  a  box 
stall  in  a  livery  stable.  I  haven't  even  got  a 
silence-room  or  an  annunciator  connecting  me 
with  the  bridge — I've  got  to  be  hollered  at  like 
a  sinker  cook  in  an  East  Side  beanery!" 

The  stranger  laughed.  It  was  altogether  a 
laugh  of  sympathy.  But  his  meditative  eye  kept 
roving  about  the  stateroom. 

"I  suppose  you've  seen  a  good  deal  of  the 
South?"  he  said  at  last. 

"All  I  want  to,  thank  you!"  promptly  an 
swered  McKinnon.  The  vigour  of  his  retort 
made  the  other  man  smile  again. 

"You  don't  like  it  down  there,  eh?" 

The  operator,  who  had  slowly  adjusted  his 
caplike  receiving  apparatus,  performed  his  ha 
bitual  rite  of  lifting  the  'phone-receiver  from 
his  ear  to  catch  the  question  as  it  was  repeated. 

"Do  you?"  demanded  the  operator. 

The  stranger  did  not  answer  the  question.  In 
stead  of  that  he  asked  another. 

"Why  don't  you  keep  out  of  it,  then?"  There 
was  nothing,  apparently,  but  off-handed  good 
nature  in  the  query.  The  operator  laughed. 

"I  can't  afford  to,"  was  all  he  said,  though 
he  added  in  an  afterthought:  "Until  I  can  get 
at  the  work  I  want. ' ' 

McKinnon 's  questioner  looked  relieved.    He 


48  THE  MAN  ON  BOAED 

became  more  light-hearted,  more  suavely  con 
solatory. 

"But  it's  so  deucedly  mysterious — sending  all 
kinds  of  messages  for  all  kinds  of  people,"  he 
argued. 

"What's  so  mysterious  about  it?"  the  man 
at  the  table  demanded.  "/  think  it's  confound 
edly  simple." 

"The  machinery  is,  I  suppose,  when  you  un 
derstand  it;  but  I  mean  the  mixing  up  in  the 
big  events,  the  getting  next  to  life  with  the  shell 
off." 

"Oh,  it's  mostly  weather  reports  and  'sweet 
heart'  messages  and  captains  giving  distances 
and  saying  they're  coming  into  port  or  passing 
lights  or  wanting  wharf  room,  if  it  isn't  the 
Navy  people  asking  for  Sunday  papers  and 
news  from  home." 

' '  But  think  what  a  swath  you  could  cut  with 
wireless  if  you  wanted  to,"  pursued  the  other 
in  his  placid  disregard  of  all  side  issues. 

"Mel"  said  McKinnon,  turning  slowly  about. 

"I  mean  as  a  side  line,"  interposed  the  stran 
ger  with  a  shrug.  Still  again  McKinnon 's  nerv 
ous  grey  eyes  swept  the  figure  in  the  steamer- 
chair. 

"But  I  have  a  side  line,"  explained  the  oper 
ator  as  he  noted  the  other  man's  puzzled  gaze 
resting  on  his  box  of  models. 


THE  MAN  ON  BOAED  49 

"How  d'you  mean?" 

"I  mean  that  reed-disk  and  Ruhmkorff  coil 
transmitter  you  see  there.  That's  the  work  I 
want  to  get  at." 

"But  what  is  it?"  was  the  other's  half-diffi 
dent  inquiry.  His  lack  of  interest  in  no  way 
seemed  to  depress  the  younger  man. 

"It's  my  wireless  telephony  scheme  for  pilot- 
boats  and  fleet  inano2uvres  and  yacht  races  and 
ten-mile  work  in  general.  For  instance,  there's 
a  battle  going  on,  and  the  whole  top  hamper  of 
a  cruiser  gets  blown  away;  all  we'd  have  to  do, 
with  this,  would  be  to  run  a  wire  up  on  an  oar 
and  call  on  the  flagship  for  orders." 

"But  aren't  other  folks  for  getting  in  ahead 
of  you  on  this?" 

"Well,  I  can  still  use  my  outfit  to  smash  their 
monopoly  and  stop  royalty  overcharges.  You 
see,  it 's  only  an  arrangement  of  steel  reeds  con 
nected  with  a  receiver,  or  say  to  a  responder 
like  this  one  on  the  table.  These  reeds  are  tuned 
in  unison  with  the  transmitter-reeds — it  works 
on  what  we  call  the  law  of  syntonic  synchron 
ism." 

He  noticed,  as  he  went  on,  the  other's  com 
panionable  grimace  at  the  polysyllables. 

"But  this  is  all  Greek  to  you,"  he  said,  with 
a  shoulder  movement  of  humorous  resignation. 

"No,  it  ain't,"  protested  the  other.  "Go  on." 


50  THE  MAN  ON  BOARD 

"Models  cost  money,  of  course,"  McKinnon 
continued  more  deliberately.  "I  have  to  go 
slow.  But  once  I  get  that  apparatus  where 
I  want  it  you'll  never  see  me  south  of  Hatteras 
again. ' ' 

He  stopped,  and  waited  for  the  other  man  to 
speak. 

"It's  not  a  white  man's  country,"  admitted 
the  stranger  with  a  nod  toward  the  South. 
"The  only  good  thing  in  it's  the  mules." 

"We've  got  to  take  that  as  it  comes,"  McKin 
non  said  with  an  unlooked-for  placidity  of  tone. 
Then  he  leaned  back,  with  half-closed  eyes,  and 
linked  his  long  forefingers  together  behind  his 
head.  "You  see,  I  can  always  save  money  on 
a  coastwise  run  like  this :  there's  no  way  of  get 
ting  rid  of  it." 

"Well,  money's  worth  having  now  and  then," 
the  stranger  remarked  as  his  sagely  ruminative 
eye  fell  on  the  little  varnished  box  that  held  the 
wireless  responder. 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment  or  two,  though 
McKinnon  watched  him  closely  out  of  his  half- 
shut  eyes.  Then  the  stranger  swung  slowly 
about  and  touched  the  operator  on  his  soiled 
shirt-sleeve.  McKinnon  felt  the  heavy  forefin 
ger  on  his  arm,  but  he  did  not  move. 

"See  here,"  said  the  stranger,  and  both  his 
voice  and  his  expression  had  undergone  some 


THE  MAN  ON  BOARD  51 

quick  and  pregnant  change,  "see  here;  d'you 
want  to  make  ten  times  what  you  get  out  of 
this  key-operating  business?  D'you  want  to 
make  a  good  round  sum,  helping  me  out  of  a 
hole?" 

The  Laminian's  operator  looked  closely  at  the 
man  who  had  invaded  his  cabin.  He  had  ap 
parently  been  afraid  of  some  such  undercurrent 
of  self-interest  in  the  other's  advances.  He 
seemed  to  possess  the  man  of  thought's  persist 
ent  horror  of  material  and  entangling  alliances ; 
he  seemed  to  feel  that  some  secret  web  of  in 
veiglement  had  been  woven  about  him. 

"How  could  I  help  you  out  of  a  hole?"  he 
curtly  demanded. 

The  stranger  did  not  answer  at  once.  The 
other's  suddenly  aroused  suspicion  had  warned 
him  to  go  slow.  Instead  of  speaking  he  leaned 
back  in  the  steamer-chair  and  studied  his  com 
panion.  The  path  before  him  seemed  a  preca 
rious  one.  His  pursed-up  lips  worked  slowly 
in  and  out  as  he  sat  there  temporising.  There 
was  something  suggestive  of  the  ruminant  in  his 
large  and  heavy  silence. 

"Could  we  talk  here — us  two,  man  to  man?" 
he  finally  asked,  with  a  look  at  the  door. 

"Of  course  we  can,"  the  operator  retorted, 
nettled  by  the  sense  of  mystery  the  other  was 
conjuring  up  about  so  simple  a  situation.  This 


52  THE  MAN  ON  BOARD 

vague  feeling  of  irritation  seemed  to  merge  into 
something  that  was  almost  anger  as  he  watched 
the  stranger  slowly  rise  to  his  feet  and  cross 
over  to  the  cabin  door,  held  back  against  the 
wall-plates  by  its  brass  hook.  He  lifted  the 
end  of  this  hook  on  his  toe  and  let  the  freed  door 
swing  shut  with  the  slow  dip  of  the  steamer's 
deck.  Then  he  ruffled  out  the  faded  denim  cur 
tain  and  came  back  and  sat  down.  The  two  men 
continued  to  look  at  each  other  guardedly. 

"I've  got  a  hard  job  ahead  of  me,"  began 
the  intruder,  seeming  to  feel  his  way  as  he  went. 
"A  hard  job — and  you're  the  only  man  on  this 
ship  who  can  help  me  along." 

"Go  on,"  McKinnon  commanded  with  an  im 
patient  reach  for  his  discarded  coat. 

"That's  just  it.  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  know 
how  to  go  on!"  the  other  explained.  He  gave 
vent  to  a  guttural  laugh  of  uneasiness  and  sat 
stroking  his  pendulous,  turkey-cock  throat. 

The  operator,  drumming  on  his  pine  table- 
edge,  waited  in  silence.  The  other  man  was  also 
silent.  The  pulse  and  throb  of  the  engines  crept 
into  the  white-walled  cabin. 

"Well,"  said  McKinnon  with  a  significant 
glance  toward  his  large  and  authoritative  sil 
ver  watch.  The  stranger's  eye,  following  him, 
passed  on  to  the  key-lever  and  then  on  again 
to  the  helix  wires. 


THE  MAN  ON  BOARD  53 

"You  may  recall  that  you  sent  a  couple  of 
messages  out  for  me  this  afternoon,"  he  finally 
began. 

McKinnon  recalled  the  fact  of  the  two  de 
spatches. 

"Maybe  you  happen  to  remember  the  word 
ing  of  those  two  particular  messages?" 

McKinnon,  with  wrinkled  brow,  turned  to  his 
"send-hook."  He  found  the  two  sheets,  and 
straightened  them  out  on  his  knee.  Then  he 
looked  up  to  say:  "We  never  hold  these  things 
in  our  head,  you  know.  ,We  can't,  any  more 
than  a  wire  can." 

He  let  his  gaze  run  over  the  sheets  of  paper 
before  him.  The  other  man  sat  watching  him 
as  he  read.  For  just  a  moment,  as  he  made  note 
of  what  seemed  the  operator's  half-forbearing, 
half-cynical  indifference,  a  shadow  of  disap 
pointment  flitted  across  his  face,  typifying,  ap 
parently,  some  passing  regret  for  a  reconnais 
sance  at  last  recognised  as  unnecessary.  But  he 
pulled  himself  together  at  once,  as  though  de 
termined  to  face  the  problem  immediately  be 
fore  him. 

' '  Would  you  mind  reading  that  first  despatch 
out  to  me?"  he  asked  with  the  placid  authority 
of  a  prestidigitateur  sure  of  his  trick. 

McKinnon  rattled  through  the  message  at  a 
breath:  "LVarrel,  sixty  Wall  Street,  New  York. 


54  THE  MAN  ON  BOARD 

Our  man  on  board  Laminwn,  bound  Puerto  Lo- 
combia.  Wire  Washington.  Will  have  him  held 
by  authorities  to  await  instructions.  DUFFY/' 

The  operator  put  the  message  on  the  table 
and  calmly  weighted  it  with  his  carborundum 
box.  The  other  man  suddenly  realised,  as  he 
made  note  of  McKinnon's  attitude  of  unmoved 
neutrality,  how  automatic  the  human  mind  can 
become ;  how,  when  once  immersed  in  the  meth 
od  of  doing  a  thing,  it  can  lose  all  sense  of  the 
thing  itself.  The  man  of  the  key  had  seen  noth 
ing  but  a  string  of  words  to  be  "sent."  It  was 
only  too  apparent  that  their  meaning  had  es 
caped  him. 

"I  suppose  I've  got  to  explain  that,"  said 
the  stranger,  fondling  one  of  his  thick,  short  ci 
gars  in  his  thick,  short  fingers.  "You'll  no 
tice  that  this  message  went  to  60  Wall  Street. 
You  may  or  may  not  know  that  that's  the  Infor 
mation  Bureau  of  the  Consolidated  Fruit  Con 
cern.  And  if  you've  knocked  about  the  Banana 
Belt  long  enough  you've  found  out  that  those 
people  just  about  own  those  little  yam-eating 
republics  down  there. ' ' 

McKinnon  nodded  as  a  sign  that  he  under 
stood. 

"They've  got  a  good  many  millions  of  money 
locked  up  in  that  export  business  o '  theirs.  And 


THE  MAN  ON  BOARD  55 

when  you're  doing  business  in  a  republic  that's 
built  on  bullets  you've  got  to  watch  where 
you're  walking.  It  means  that  you've  got  to 
keep  your  ear  to  the  ground ;  see  that  your  gov 
ernments  are  stable,  I  mean ;  and  your  marion 
ettes  in  their  nice  little  red  and  gold  uniforms 
running  smooth  and  true.  That's  why  they  re 
tain  a  big  man  like  Varrel  for  their  information 
bureau — just  to  know  who 's  poking  a  finger  into 
the  political  pie  down  there,  and  to  be  ready  for 
trouble  when  it  blows  up." 

It  was  all  obvious  enough  to  the  listening  op 
erator. 

".Well,  I'm  here  acting  for  Varrel  and  the 
Consolidated  Fruit  people.  The  Locombian 
charge  d'affaires  at  Washington  tipped  our 
office  off  some  five  weeks  ago  about  trouble 
ahead  in  Guariqui." 

" Where's  Guariqui?"  quietly  asked  McKin- 
non. 

"  Guariqui 's  their  capital — the  capital  of  Lo- 
combia.  Since  we've  heard  that,  of  course, 
we  Ve  been  co-operating  with  the  department  at 
Washington,  keeping  an  eye  on  any  Locombian 
likely  to  be  interested  in  the  Guariqui  mix-up." 

McKinnon  confessed  that  he  had  known  of 
detectives  engaged  in  the  sole  pursuit  of  shad 
owing  Latin- American  exiles. 


56  THE  MAN  ON  BOARD 

"And  it's  right  here  under  this  deck" — Duffy 
tapped  the  floor  with  his  heel  as  he  spoke — "it's 
right  here  on  this  ship  o'  yours  that  we've  got 
Ganley — the  one  and  only  Ganleyl" 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

THE  stranger  peered  across  the  cabin  at  the 
unperturbed  operator. 

" Who's  Ganley?"  asked  McKinnon. 

The  man  in  the  steamer-chair  let  his  aston 
ishment  explode  in  a  ceiling-ward  belch  of  smoke. 

"Ganley!  Why,  Ganley 's  the  biggest  gun 
runner  doing  business  in  the  Caribbean!" 

"Gun-runner?" 

"Yes,  the  slickest  revolution-maker  that  ever 
shipped  carbines  and  smokeless  into  a  Latin- 
American  republic!" 

"He's  new  to  me,"  McKinnon  protested. 

"He's  the  man  who's  always  smelling  out  a 
country  that's  looking  for  a  liberator.  And  he 
gets  a  rake-off  from  the  patriots  and  a  rake-off 
from  the  Birmingham  gun  people,  and  another 
rake-off  from  the  nitro-makers.  Why,  he's  the 
man  who 's  been  engineering  this  Locombian  up 
rising  for  the  last  seven  months!  But  now 

57 


58  THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

we've  got  him  good,  and  got  him  where  we  want 
him." 

"Then  what's  he  doing  on  a  steamer  like 
this?  Couldn't  he  see  he  was  going  to  be  cor 
nered?" 

The  disposition  of  the  operator  was  not  alto 
gether  an  inflammable  one. 

"That's  just  the  point,  my  friend.  He 
couldn't  get  out  of  Charleston  or  Mobile  or 
New  Orleans.  We  had  those  ports  watched.  So 
he  slipped  quietly  up  to  New  York,  engaged  a 
passage  on  Saturday's  Hamburg- American 
steamer  for  Colon,  and  then  slipped  over  to  the 
Laminian  in  a  closed  cab  wlien  Ee  tKougFt  we 
weren't  keeping  tab  on  him.  But,  pshaw!  you 
know  all  this  already,  don't  you?" 

"Not  all  of  it,"  replied  McKinnon. 

"But  you  saw  that  yellow-skinned  man  who 
was  helped  aboard?  The  sick-looking  fellow 
with  the  Spanish  servant,  who  was  almost  car 
ried  up  from  that  cab  on  the  wharf?" 

McKinnon  confessed  to  some  vague  remem 
brance  of  the  incident. 

1  i  That  man  is  Ganley ! ' '  said  the  other.  ' '  And 
he's  under  this  deck,  down  there  in  cabin  four 
teen,  and  you'll  find  that  he's  going  to  stay  there 
until  we  slip  into  the  roadstead  at  Puerto  Lo- 
combia. ' ' 


THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE  59 

A  meditative  silence  filled  the  little  white- 
walled  cabin. 

"But  what  have  I  got  to  do  with  all  this?" 
McKinnon  at  last  demanded.  His  face  seemed 
to  carry  the  complaint  that  he  had  always  found 
dissension  on  shipboard  hard  to  endure;  it  was 
never  easy  to  get  away  from  disturbances  in  a 
world  so  small,  or  to  put  hate  behind  one  in  a 
life  so  circumscribed.  Yet  he  smiled  a  little, 
in  spite  of  himself.  A  ship,  he  had  somewhere 
heard,  must  be  either  a  heaven  or  a  hell.  The 
next  fortnight,  he  felt,  would  find  little  of  the 
celestial  about  the  Laminian. 

"That's  just  what  I'm  coming  around  to," 
the  intruder  was  saying  to  him.  '  *  This  Ganley, 
remember,  has  got  his  'fences'  and  confederates 
and  small-fry  Helpers.  He  works  the  thing  thor 
ough  when  he  does  it.  And  as  likely  as  not,  be 
tween  here  and  Puerto  Locombia,  he's  going  to 
get  messages  sent  in  to  him,  or  he's  going  to 
send  out  some  despatches  on  his  own  hook — 
so  as  to  keep  in  touch  with  his  people. ' ' 

The  stranger  came  to  a  stop  and  sat  regard 
ing  the  younger  man  as  though  he  looked  for 
some  word  of  encouragement  or  comprehension 
from  him. 

"The  thing  I've  got  to  guard  against  most," 
the  stranger  who  called  himself  Duffy  contin 
ued,  "is  the  department  at  Washington.  If 


60  THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

they  sent  something  in,  and  it  got  out  all  over 
the  ship,  it  would  be  likely  to  spoil  everything." 

''But  it  won't  get  out  all  over  the  ship,"  the 
operator  corrected. 

"You'll  promise  me  that?"  asked  the  other 
with  a  look  of  relief. 

"Of  course  I'll  promise  you  that — it's  part 
of  my  business." 

"But  there's  the  other  side  of  the  question," 
the  stranger  discreetly  continued.  "Ganley  is 
almost  sure  to  be  sending  or  receiving  some 
thing.  Why,  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  you've 
been  handling  something  for  him  already. ' ' 

The  operator  reached  out  for  his  message- 
hooks.  The  movement  was  merely  perfunctory, 
for  the  hooks  were  all  but  empty. 

"What  name  would  he  be  travelling  under?" 
McKinnon  looked  up  to  ask. 

"He's  booked  as  John  Siebert,  cabin  four 
teen,"  was  the  answer. 

The  man  in  the  steamer-chair  looked  relieved, 
but  only  for  a  moment,  when  he  learned  that 
nothing  had  come  or  gone. 

"Of  course  I  may  be  wrong  about  his  trying 
to  keep  in  touch  with  those  people  of  his.  And 
it  may  happen  the  department  won't  even  try 
to  have  him  held.  Perhaps  they  won't  do  any 
thing  until  we  get  him  ashore  at  Puerto  Locorn- 
bia.  But  we've  got  to  get  him  there — it's  our 


THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE  61 

last  chance.  We've  worked  too  hard  on  this 
thing  not  to  see  it  put  through  to  a  finish. ' ' 

"And?"  asked  McKinnon,  waiting. 

"All  I  want  you  to  do  is  to  keep  tab  on  any 
thing  that  comes  in  for  this  man  Ganley,  or 
about  him  and  his  tin-horn  warfare  down  there 
— and  on  anything  that's  to  go  out,  until  we 
land." 

"Are  you  acting  officially?"  McKinnon  de 
manded,  with  a  studied  effort  towards  imper 
sonality.  "I  mean,  are  you  acting  for  the  de 
partment  at  Washington?" 

"I'm  acting  as  the  confidential  agent  of  the 
Consolidated  Fruit  people,  and  the  Consolidated 
Fruit  people  have  been  co-operating  with  the 
department  for  several  weeks  now." 

"And  you  simply  want  to  know  what  these 
messages  are?" 

"Yes,  that's  all;  I  mean  that's  all,  unless 
they're  of  such  a  nature  as  to  defeat  the  ends 
of  justice.  We  don't  want  anything  to  get 
through  that's  going  to  help  our  man  slip  away 
from  us." 

"You  mean  for  me  to  hold  back  everything 
that  looks  suspicious  until  you  O.K.  it?" 

"And  couldn't  you  do  that  if  I  made  it  worth 
while  for  you  ? ' '  quietly  inquired  the  stranger. 

"How  do  you  mean  worth  while?" 


62  THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

"Why,    I'll    pay    you    for    your    trouble. 


I'll — " 

But  McKinnon 's  seemingly  indignant  start 
brought  the  older  man  to  a  stop. 

"You  don't  suppose  I'm  going  to  take  money 
to  hold  up  the  company's  business?"  he  de 
manded. 

The  stranger  raised  a  thick,  red  hand  protest- 
ingiy.  McKinnon  noticed  a  scar  in  the  centre 
of  the  wide  palm.  He  inappositely  wondered  if 
it  could  be  a  bullet  wound. 

"Hold  on  a  minute!"  he  warned  the  other, 
appeasingly.  "This  isn't  a  matter  o'  messen 
ger-boy  tips.  It's  out  and  out  business.  You've 
got  to  remember  they're  big  things  involved  in 
this,  and  big  people,  too." 

<  <•  Why  do  you  want  to  mix  me  up  in  the  mess, 
whether  it's  big  or  little!"  complained  the  oper 
ator.  The  other  man  permitted  the  protest  to 
go  unanswered. 

"But  can't  you  tell  me  what  it's  worth  for 
you  to  co-operate  with  us  in  this?"  he  blandly 
insisted. 

"It  would  be  worth  my  job!"  McKinnon 
cried.  The  other  man,  eyeing  him  closely,  could 
not  rid  himself  of  the  impression  that  the  oper 
ator  was  acting  a  part,  that  he  was  feigning  re 
luctance  for  some  potentially  better  bargain  yet 
to  be  driven. 


THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE  63 

"Well,  what's  your  job  worth?"  was  the  old 
er  man's  undisturbed  query.  In  fact,  there  was 
an  undertone  of  contempt  in  his  guttural  ques 
tion. 

"Oh,  it's  not  what  the  job's  worth,"  protest 
ed  McKinnon.  "It's  the  putting  outside  busi 
ness  before  the  business  I'm  paid  to  do.  It's 
the  acting  against  regulations  and  getting  the 
company  officers  down  on  me.  It 's  the  doing  of 
something  I'm  not  here  to  do." 

"But  this  is  merely  a  matter  between  us  two, 
man  to  man.  The  company  doesn't  have  any 
thing  to  do  with  this." 

"They  own  this  junk,"  broke  out  the  oper 
ator,  with  a  wave  of  the  hand  that  designated 
the  apparatus  about  him.  "And  they  about 
own  me,  too,  as  long  as  I'm  on  their  pay-roll." 

"Of  course  they  do,"  the  other  soothed  tran 
quilly.  "But  you're  here,  and  they're  in  New 
York,  and  you've  got  the  running  of  this  appa 
ratus  until  we  dock  at  Puerto  Locombia." 

The  operator  sat  looking  at  the  other  man  in 
silence. 

*Why,  you  told  me  yourself,  a  few  minutes 
ago,  that  your  machinery  doesn't  always  work 
right.  And  you  say  you  haven't  a  tape,  or  any 
thing  that  registers  the  messages  as  they  come 
to  you.  Isn't  that  right?" 

The  operator  nodded. 


64  THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

"Then  why  couldn't  you  accidentally  miss  a 
message  ?  Or  why  couldn  't  you  send  it  out  with 
out  being  sure  that  it  was  going  to  carry  clear 
across  to  the  next  operator1?" 

McKinnon  still  looked  at  the  other  man. 
There  was  something  so  placid  and  intimate 
about  the  tones  of  the  stranger's  voice  that  the 
very  purport  of  his  suggestion  had  seemed 
robbed  of  its  enormity. 

"I  wouldn't  do  a  thing  like  that  for  five  hun 
dred  dollars!"  the  operator  at  last  declared. 

The  stranger  looked  back  at  him  without  a 
move  of  his  great  body  in  the  steamer-chair.  Mc 
Kinnon 's  glance  of  open  contempt  in  nowise 
disturbed  him. 

"I'll  give  you  one  thousand  dollars  if  you 
do  it!"  he  said.  His  voice  was  quiet  and  casual 
as  he  spoke,  but  again  the  operator  swung  about 
and  peered  at  him.  He  opened  his  lips  to  reply, 
and  then  suddenly  became  silent.  He  shifted  in 
his  chair,  as  though  to  draw  away  from  some 
tangible  and  precipitating  temptation. 

"I'll  give  you  one  thousand  dollars,"  repeat 
ed  the  stranger,  "and  I'll  promise  to  stand  be 
tween  you  and  any  trouble  you're  afraid  of." 

"It's  not  what  I'm  afraid  of,"  the  other  re 
torted. 

"Then  what  is  it?  You  fail  to  catch  a  mes 
sage  or  two,  and  no  one's  the  wiser.  [What  of 


THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE  65 

that?  Good  heavens,  man,  you're  not  doing 
anything  crooked !  Nobody 's  cut  a  throat  back 
there  in  New  York!  Nobody's  trying  to  get 
away  from  your  Centre  Street  people.  You're 
not  doing  anything  against  the  penal  code." 

"Why  didn't  you  go  to  the  captain  about 
this?"  complained  the  operator.  The  tacit  note 
of  concession  in  that  complaint  did  not  escape 
his  companion. 

"That  low-brow!"  he  grunted  in  disgust. 

"Being  a  low-brow,  as  you  call  him,  ought  to 
make  him  all  the  easier  to  handle,"  suggested 
McKinnon,  with  his  short  and  puzzling  laugh. 
"And  he's  still  the  master  of  the  ship." 

"The  captain  has  no  more  to  do  with  this 
than  De  Forest  himself!  And  I  imagine  he'd 
rather  be  soaking  in  brandy  pawnees  than  talk 
ing  business  to  outsiders.  This  is  something 
between  us  two.  You're  not  cheating  anybody. 
You're  not  hurting  anybody.  All  you  do  is  to 
help  me  win  a  big  case,  and  get  well  paid  for 
your  trouble.  And  a  twist  of  the  wrist  is  what 
it  costs  you.  For  I'm  assuming,  of  course,  you 
can  put  that  machinery  of  yours  out  of  business 
for  the  time  being  without  exactly  showing 
how. ' ' 

"That's  easy  enough,"  said  the  operator, 
with  a  stare  at  his  apparatus.  * '  There  are  a 
dozen  ways  of  throwing  a  complicated  thing  like 


66  THE  WEB  OF  INTEIGUE 

that  out  of  kilter.  It's  my  getting  out  of  kilter 
with  the  company  that  worries  me." 

"The  company  doesn't  count,  my  friend. 
They're  outsiders  in  this.  And  you  get  your 
thousand  dollars  in  cold  cash,  to  work  on  that 
reed-disk  of  yours  for  half  a  year,  if  you  want 
to." 

McKinnon  laughed  a  little.  Then  he  grew 
more  thoughtful,  and  was  about  to  speak,  when 
the  quick  tread  of  feet  sounded  on  the  deck  with 
out.  He  caught  up  the  'phone  "set"  hurriedly 
and  bent  over  the  pine  table.  The  steps  passed 
on,  but  the  betrayal  of  disingenuousness  re 
mained  a  consoling  and  obvious  fact  to  the  man 
in  the  steamer-chair.  It  left  him  no  longer  in 
doubt. 

He  reached  down  into  his  capacious  trouser 
pocket  and  produced  a  roll  of  treasury  notes, 
held  together  by  a  double  rubber  band.  He 
peeled  off  three  orange-tinted  twenty-dollar 
bills  and  folded  them  neatly  across  the  middle, 
lengthwise.  Then,  with  equal  deliberation,  he 
thrust  them  into  McKinnon 's  still  hesitating 
fingers.  The  operator  looked  down  at  the  money 
doubtfully  and  then  up  at  the  stranger. 

"That's  just  a  trio  of  twenties  to  bind  the 
bargain,"  the  latter  explained.  "You've  got 
to  get  something  for  me  taking  up  your  time 
like  this." 


THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE  67 

"But  how  are  you  going  to  clear  me — I  mean 
how  are  you  going  to  make  them  see  I  haven't 
been  acting  against  the  ship,  if  it  ever  comes 
to  a  showdown!"  asked  the  operator,  not  so 
much  with  timidity,  but  more  as  though  he  took 
a  morbid  joy  in  toying  with  the  dangers  of  the 
situation. 

'  *  There  '11  be  nothing  to  clear,  and  nothing  to 
show,"  the  other  retorted.  "All  you've  got  to 
do  is  to  have  a  bad  ear  when  a  certain  message 
or  two  happens  along.  But  I'll  go  further  than 
that  just  to  put  your  mind  at  rest.  To-morrow, 
when  I  pay  over  the  balance,  I'll  put  it  down 
on  paper,  with  my  name  to  it,  that  I  guarantee 
to  protect  you.  We  can  both  sign  a  note  show 
ing  we're  acting  straight  and  where  we  stand. 
Then  you'll  have  me  tied  down  in  black  and 
white.  That  seems  square  enough,  doesn't  it!" 

"Oh,  it's  square  enough.  But  suppose  this 
man  Ganley  comes  to  me  with  a  message  to  send 
out.  I've  got  to  show  it  to  you,  and  if  you  don't 
approve  of  it  I've  got  to  act  the  lie  that  the 
message  has  been  sent  and  keep  lying  to  him 
every  time  he  asks  me  about  it." 

"You're  not  paid  to  be  a  'fence'  for  a  gun 
runner,  are  you?" 

The  older  man  laughed  a  little.  Then  he  rose 
heavily  to  his  feet.  His  head  almost  touched 
the  cabin  ceiling.  "There's  not  much  danger 


68  THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

he'll  ever  ask  about  it.  And  when  you  know 
the  man  and  his  business  you'll  never  let  things 
like  that  worry  you." 

"That  doesn't  excuse  me — his  being  a  gun 
runner.  ' ' 

"Well,  if  you  felt  that  way,  of  course,  you 
could  send  the  message.  Only  you  might  send 
it  as  I  mentioned — with  the  risk  of  falling  short, 
I  mean;  some  time  when  the  engine-room 
doesn't  happen  to  be  giving  you  quite  enough 
power." 

The  operator  weighed  and  pondered  the  ques 
tion.  The  man  beside  him  was  anarchistic 
enough  in  his  ideals  of  conduct.  He  recognised 
no  authority  beyond  the  dictates  of  expediency. 
He  went  back  to  primal  and  feral  conditions — 
went  back  to  them  with  the  disquieting  direct 
ness  of  a  savage. 

"I'd  have  to  call  until  I  got  my  station," 
temporised  the  operator,  "and  the  other  fel 
low's  O.K.  after  he'd  got  my  call.  Then  he'd 
signal  'Go  ahead,'  to  show  he  was  ready  to  re 
ceive,  and  if  I  failed  to  reach  him  he'd  keep 
'coming  back'  for  me  to  repeat.  Then,  too,  what 
I  was  trying  to  send  might  be  picked  up  by  any 
stray  operator  behind  the  skyline.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  I  let  the  message  die,  after  getting  my 
'go-ahead'  signal,  the  thing  would  be  reported 


69 

and  looked  into.  And  that  would  mean  trouble 
with  the  company  when  I  got  back." 

"Then  when  you  get  your  *  go-ahead'  signal 
why  couldn't  you  just  lay  low  and  complain 
that  your  receiver  or  coherer,  or  something,  was 
out  of  order — that  you  were  cut  off  from  receiv 
ing?" 

* '  I  hate  to  lie  about  my  machinery, ' '  retorted 
the  operator  with  what  seemed  a  blind  and  fool 
ish  pride  in  his  tools. 

The  older  man's  curl  of  lip  showed  a  slowly 
mounting  dislike  for  further  argument.  Then 
he  lifted  his  wide  shoulders  with  a  movement  of 
resignation. 

"Of  course,  I  don't  want  you  to  lose  either 
your  job  or  your  self-respect  just  because  my 
official  duty's  been  making  me  shadow  a  man." 

The  wireless  operator  seemed  groping  about 
for  an  answer  when  the  quietness  of  the  ship 
was  broken  by  a  sudden  sound.  It  was  the 
Laminian's  foghorn,  hoarse  and  mournful 
through  the  darkness,  tearing  the  quiet  with 
its  slowly  repeated  call.  The  two  men  stood  side 
by  side,  listening,  as  the  bass-noted  complaint 
was  repeated. 

"We're  running  into  thick  weather,"  said  the 
operator,  turning  to  take  up  his  earphones.  The 
two  men,  immured  in  their  own  ends  and  aims, 
had  lost  all  thought  of  time  and  environment. 


70  THE  WEB  OF  INTRIGUE 

A  moment  later  heavy  footsteps  sounded  on 
the  deck  and  the  captain  appeared  in  the  door 
way.  He  stood  in  the  narrow  opening,  red- 
nosed,  gnome-like,  with  the  white  light  glisten 
ing  on  his  waterproofed  figure. 

"Are  you  keeping  an  ear  open  for  everything 
in  there?'*  he  demanded,  with  a  scowl  of  dis 
approval  at  the  man  beside  the  steamer-chair. 

"I'm  listening  for  anything,"  McKinnon  an 
swered,  with  the  "  set "  over  his  head.  The  door 
shut  again.  McKinnon  turned  back  to  the  lit 
tered  pine  table.  The  foghorn  sounded  and 
grew  silent;  the  dynamo  purred  and  buzzed  as 
the  starting-box  lever  crossed  down  on  the  con 
tact-pins. 

The  stranger  beside  the  steamer-chair  but 
toned  his  coat.  Then  he  crossed  the  cabin  and 
turned  back  to  peer  at  the  operator,  bent  low 
over  his  table  as  he  called  and  listened,  and 
called  again. 

"So  I  can  count  on  you  in  this?"  he  asked  in 
his  quiet  and  reassuring  guttural.  His  hand 
was  already  on  the  cabin  door-knob. 

"To  the  finish,"  answered  the  other  man 
pregnantly,  replacing  his  earphones  and  holding 
them  close  to  his  head  with  his  muffling  handker 
chiefs. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  SECOND  VISITOB 

was  oppressed  by  the  thought  that 
the  hour  was  late  and  his  body  bone-tired.  But 
he  did  not  close  communication  with  the  Royal 
Mail  operator  who  had  "picked  him  up" 
through  the  fog  until  he  had  been  duly  warned 
of  heavy  weather  southeast  of  Hatteras. 
Through  the  night  came  also  the  news  that  one 
of  the  Royal  Mail  passengers,  an  American 
consul  from  Aregua,  had  broken  his  thigh-bone 
against  a  bulkhead,  and  the  Laminian  was  asked 
to  relay  the  news  to  New  York.  This  meant  a 
call  for  ambulance  and  doctors  to  be  at  the  land 
ing-wharf,  together  with  an  order  to  have  a 
hospital-room  made  ready. 

So  the  key  was  kept  busy  again  while  the  be 
neficent  resources  of  science  were  being  mar 
shalled  so  many  miles  away.  The  Laminian' s 
operator  had  bidden  his  far-off  fellow  worker 
a  sleepy  "good-night,"  and  was  still  stooping 
absently  over  his  tuning-box — which  had  not 

71 


72  THE  SECOND  VISITOR 

adapted  itself  to  the  thick- weather  work — when 
a  knock  sounded  on  his  cabin  door. 

"Come  in!"  he  said,  lifting  off  his  earphones 
with  a  little  sigh  of  mingled  weariness  and  res 
ignation.  He  suspected  that  his  undisclosed 
caller  was  a  junior  officer,  much  given  to  gar 
rulity.  He  began  to  dread  the  thought  of  being 
kept  out  of  bed  for  another  hour  or  two. 

The  door  opened  slowly  and  the  look  of  frank 
annoyance  as  slowly  faded  from  the  operator's 
face,  for  standing  there,  confronting  him,  blink 
ing  in  the  strong  glare  of  his  electrics,  was  a 
young  woman. 

Her  skirts,  gathered  up  in  one  hand,  and  held 
high  from  the  wet  deck,  showed  in  a  sweeping 
cascade  of  white  against  the  gloom  behind  them. 
On  her  head  was  a  blue  seagoing  cap,  swathed 
in  a  long,  cream-coloured  motor-veil.  Behind 
her  stood  a  stewardess,  fat  and  untidy,  carry 
ing  a  cloak,  with  the  outward  and  studious  so 
licitude  of  a  servile  nature  exalted  by  the  con 
sciousness  of  having  been  overtipped.  She 
would  have  made  an  ideal  figure,  the  operator 
felt,  for  the  nurse  of  the  Capulets. 

McKinnon  put  down  his  'phone  and  rose  from 
his  seat,  still  peering  at  the  figure  nearer  him, 
the  woman  in  the  doorway.  He  looked  at  her 
closely,  perhaps  too  closely,  for  he  had  not  im 
agined  any  such  woman  aboard  the  Laminian. 


.THE  SECOND  VISITOR  73 

He  noticed  that  she  was  wearing  a  gown  of  dark- 
blue  pilot-cloth,  and  that  she  was  younger  than 
he  had  at  first  supposed.  One  of  her  hands  had 
been  thrown  out  to  the  door-jamb  to  steady  her 
against  the  roll  and  pitch  of  the  deck.  The  clear 
oval  of  her  face — and  it  seemed  more  the  mature 
and  thoughtful  face  of  a  woman  than  the  timid 
and  hesitating  face  of  a  girl — was  shadowed  and 
softened  by  a  crowning  mass  of  brown  hair. 
Her  teeth,  as  she  ventured  her  sober  yet  oddly 
conciliating  smile,  impressed  him  as  being  very 
white  and  regular,  vaguely  hinting  at  a  bodily 
strength  which  the  softness  of  her  eyes,  at  a 
first  glance,  seemed  to  contradict.  Yet  these 
deep-lashed  eyes  were  alert  and  alive  with  the 
fires  of  intelligence,  and  set  wide  apart  under 
the  low  and  thoughtful  brow.  They  carried  an 
inalienable  sense  of  wisdom  in  their  almost  au 
stere  steadiness  of  outlook,  McKinnon  felt,  as 
the  woman  still  stood  in  the  doorway,  puckering 
her  face  a  little  at  the  strong  light.  Yet  what 
most  impressed  him  was  the  sense  of  ebullient 
vigour,  of  intrepid  and  Aprilian  vitality,  which 
brooded  about  her.  She  was  by  no  means  Ama 
zonian  in  stature — she  was  even  smaller  than 
he  had  at  first  suspected — but  she  gave  him  the 
impression  of  being  youthfully  and  buoyantly 
full-blooded. 
Then  she  stepped  boldly  in  across  the  high 


74  THE  SECOND  VISITOR 

door-sill  and  held  out  a  tinted  form-pad  sheet 
to  the  operator.  The  solicitously  purring  stew 
ardess,  at  a  gesture  from  her  benefactor,  had 
already  'disappeared. 

"You  are  still  sending,  are  you  not?"  asked 
the  young  woman,  stepping  still  nearer  the  oper 
ating-table. 

Her  voice  betrayed  no  trace  of  foreign  origin, 
as  McKinnon  had  at  first  expected  it  might.  The 
speech  was  that  of  a  well-groomed  New  York 
girl,  the  type  of  girl  that  McKinnon  had  so  often 
noted  about  the  Fifth  Avenue  shops  and  the 
theatre  lobbies.  The  voice  was  the  New  York 
voice,  yet  with  a  difference.  It  was  the  slight 
est  and  thinnest  substratum  of  accent,  of  modu 
lation,  that  made  up  this  difference.  Yet  in  do 
ing  so  it  imparted  to  her  words  a  mild  and  be 
witching  gentleness  of  tone  that  seemed  to  hint 
at  some  indefinably  exotic  influence  of  education 
or  environment.  It  seemed  to  impart  to  her  the 
crisp  piquancy  of  the  Parisian,  persistently  yet 
mysteriously  accounting  for  her  birdlike  alert 
ness  of  poise  and  movement,  for  some  continu 
ous  suggestion  of  schoolgirl  youthfulness  that 
belied  her  actual  yea«rs.  It  seemed  to  convert 
what  he  had  at  first  accepted  as  audacity  into 
fortitude  touched  with  discretion. 

"Then  you  are  sending,"  she  said,  as  though 
in  answer  to  her  own  question. 


THE  SECOND  VISITOR  75 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  McKinnon,  backing  away 
from  the  chair  that  she  might  take  it  if  she 
chose.  "I'm  sorry,  but  I've  just  stopped  for 
the  night." 

For  the  first  time  he  was  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  at  work  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
and  that  these  sleeves  were  wofully  soiled.  He 
took  down  his  coat  and  struggled  into  it.  The 
young  woman  noticed  the  movement  gratefully 
and  sank  into  the  chair  he  had  abandoned  for 
her. 

"But  can  you  not  get  somebody?"  she  asked. 
There  was  no  note  of  pleading,  in  her  voice,  but 
the  mute  appeal  of  her  eyes  as  they  rested  on  his 
made  him  suddenly  change  his  mind. 

"I've  been  having  trouble  with  that  tuner  of 
mine,"  he  explained.  "It's  rather  hard  for  us 
to  pick  up  anything  on  a  thick  night  like  this, 
you  know.  But  I'll  try." 

She  bent  a  little  to  one  side  as  he  leaned  over 
the  table  and  threw  down  the  switch-lever.  They 
were  side  by  side,  almost  touching  each  other. 

"Why  is  it  hard?"  she  asked. 

"It's  not  easy  to  explain  without  being  tech 
nical,  but  wireless  works  'heavy'  in  damp  weath 
er.  You  may  have  noticed  it  with  telephones, 
even,  on  rainy  days." 


76  THE  SECOND  VISITOR 

"Yes,  I  have/'  she  said  with  a  preoccupied 
nod,  turning  her  gaze  from  the  switch-lever  to 
McKinnon's  face. 

He  caught  the  key  in  his  fingers  and  the  blue 
spark  once  more  leaped  and  exploded  across  the 
spark-gap.  The  girl  watched  him  with  intent 
eyes  and  slightly  parted  lips  as  he  fitted  the 
"set"  to  his  head  and  listened  with  the  'phones 
pressed  against  his  ears. 

McKinnon  was  keenly  conscious  of  her  pres 
ence  there  so  close  beside  him.  There  was  some 
thing  perversely  and  insidiously  exhilarating 
in  it.  It  made  him  forget  the  hour  and  the  fact 
that  he  was  bone-tired.  The  orderlylike  stew 
ardess  fluttering  about,  he  supposed,  somewhere 
beyond  the  closed  door,  alone  took  the  romance 
out  of  a  visit  so  deliberately  secret.  He  turned 
to  his  key  again,  and  again  called  through  the 
night.  Then  he  adjusted  his  'phones  and  list 
ened.  He  finally  put  down  his  "set,"  with  a 
shake  of  the  head. 

"I'm  afraid  we'll  have  to  wait  until  morn 
ing,"  he  said. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  answered,  with  her  studi 
ous  eyes  on  the  dancing-girl  lithograph  above 
the  faded  wall-map. 

"If  you'll  leave  the  message,  I'll  file  it,"  Mc 
Kinnon  explained,  to  hide  his  resentment  at  the 


THE  SECOND  VISITOR  77 

half-derisive  touch  that  liad  crept  into  her 
glance. 

The  -woman  handed  him  the  message-form, 
with  her  intent  eyes  now  on  his. 

"Must  I  pay  now?"  she  asked. 

"It  will  be  charged  against  your  stateroom; 
the  purser  will  collect  it  before  you  land,"  ex 
plained  the  operator  as  he  jabbed  the  message 
on  his  send-hook  with  a  businesslike  sweep  of 
the  hand. 

"But  you  will  see  that  it's  sent?"  she  asked 
as  she  rose  to  her  feet. 

"It  will  be  off  before  you're  up,"  McKinnon 
answered,  watching  her  as  she  drew  the  heavy 
folds  of  her  veil  close  down  over  her  face.  She 
looked  back,  at  the  door,  with  a  timidly  auda 
cious  nod  of  the  head.  The  next  moment  the 
door  closed  and  she  was  gone. 

McKinnon,  still  conscious  of  the  subtle  fra 
grance  that  filled  the  room,  swung  about  to  his 
table.  He  paused  only  a  second  to  wonder  a 
little  at  this  faint  but  persistent  perfume  that 
seemed  to  have  charged  and  changed  the  very 
atmosphere  about  him.  Then  he  crossed  the 
cabin  and  reached  up  and  ripped  a  brightly  col 
oured  lithograph  from  the  wall,  bisecting  the 
terpsichorean  figure  with  one  impatient  tear  of 
the  paper. 


78  THE  SECOND  VISITOR 

He  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room  for  a  mo 
ment  or  two  without  moving.  Then  he  crossed 
to  his  table,  reached  out  to  the  send-hook,  and 
quickly  unspeared  the  message. 

He  looked  at  it  for  several  moments.  Then 
lie  passed  his  hands  over  his  tired  eyes  and  re 
read  the  words.  They  were  addressed  to  En 
rique  Luis  Carbo,  Locombian  Consulate,  New 
Orleans,  and  they  said: 

Am  on  board  Laminian,  bound  from  New  York  to  Puerto 
Locombia.    Advise  necessary  quarters.     ALICIA  BOYNTON. 

McKinnon  was  still  peering  down  at  the  mes 
sage  in  his  hand  when  he  was  startled  by  the 
sound  of  someone  at  his  door.  Even  before  he 
could  restore  the  message  to  the  hook  his  door 
was  opened  and  as  quickly  closed  again. 

It  was  the  girl  who  had  just  left  him.  He 
noticed  that  she  held  one  hand  on  her  breast  and 
that  she  was  panting.  She  leaned  against  the 
jamb  for  a  minute  or  two,  as  though  weak  from 
fright. 

"What  is  it?"  the  operator  asked. 

"Oh,  it's  nothing,"  she  faltered,  struggling 
bravely  enough  to  regain  her  composure.  Her 
answer  was  not  altogether  convincing. 

"What  has  happened?"  persisted  the  star 
tled  operator. 


THE  SECOND  VISITOR  79 

She  moved  away  from  the  door,  in  a  listening 
attitude. 

"It  was  a  man,"  she  tried  to  explain,  inade 
quately.  ' 'He  frightened  me. " 

"But  what  man?" 

"A  stranger — somebody  outside." 

"You  mean  that  he  dared  to  speak  to  you?" 

There  was  a  moment's  silence. 

"No,"  she  answered  in  her  low  voice.  "But 
it  was  the  shock  of  seeing  him  so — so  unexpect 
edly." 

McKinnon  stepped  across  the  cabin  and  stood 
near  her.  His  efforts  to  catch  some  clearer 
glimpse  of  the  veiled  face  were  fruitless.  She 
reminded  him  of  a  ruffled  bird. 

"Won't  you  sit  down  until  you  feel  better?" 

"No,  no!  I  must  go!  It's  so  late!  I  must 
go!" 

But  she  still  hesitated. 

"Shall  I  take  you  to  your  cabin!"  he  ven 
tured. 

She  showed  actual  alarm  at  this. 

' '  Oh,  no ;  that  is  out  of  the  question.  But  if 
you  will  turn  down  your  lights  until  I  have 
slipped  away " 

He  snapped  out  the  electrics.  He  could  hear 
her  in  the  darkness  quietly  opening  the  door. 
She  stood  there  looking  out  for  several  mo 
ments.  "Good-night,"  she  whispered  grate- 


SO  ,THE  SECOND  VISITOR 

fully  as  she  slipped  across  the  deck  and  was 
gone. 

McKinnon  stood  looking  after  her,  deep  in 
thought 


CHAPTER   VH 

THE  TANGLING  SKEIIT 

IT  was  early  the  next  morning  that  the  Lamin- 
ian  ran  into  a  coastwise  gale  that  left  her  decks 
clear  of  passengers  and  her  funnels  white  with 
salt.  The  intermittent  crackle  of  " static"  from 
the  humming  aerials  kept  obliterating  the 
etheric  "splash"  of  the  Laminian's  low-pow 
ered  coils.  The  ship  was  left  inarticulate  and 
alone  on  her  course.  Beyond  the  erratic 
"sneeze"  and  "cough"  of  the  atmospheric  elec 
tricity  there  was  no  answering  voice  within  Mc- 
Kinnon's  sternly  delimited  radius  of  communi 
cation. 

The  weather  disturbed  McKinnon  much  less 
than  did  his  own  state  of  mind.  The  day,  which 
was  one  of  brain-fogging  pitching  and  tossing 
about  his  cabin,  left  everything  connected  with 
the  night  before  still  in  suspense.  The  ship 
seemed  a  deserted  one.  Captain  Yandel  and  his 
officers  sat  alone  before  the  "racks"  of  the 
musty-odour ed  tables,  between  musty-odoured 

11 


82  THE  TANGLING  SKEIN 

walls  that  outraged  the  nostrils  like  the  efflu- 
vial  dampness  of  a  nighthawk's  cab.  No  one 
ventured  on  deck. 

McKinnon,  during  that  enforced  armistice, 
escaped  a  day  of  total  inaction  by  packing  away 
his  belongings.  That  task  accomplished,  he 
overhauled  his  helix  and  drafted  a  casing  for 
his  dynamo.  As  the  afternoon  deepened  into 
evening,  and  the  wind  fell,  he  coerced  his  atten 
tion  on  his  Ruhmkorff-coil  models.  He  was  still 
studying  over  his  reed-disk  apparatus  when  an 
unexpected  tap  sounded  on  his  door. 

Even  before  he  had  time  to  answer,  the  door 
itself  was  opened.  It  was  the  girl  in  the  pilot- 
cloth  gown,  his  visitor  of  the  night  before.  She 
looked  back  one  intent  moment,  as  though  to 
make  sure  she  was  not  being  watched  or  fol 
lowed.  Then  she  quietly  closed  the  door  and  as 
quietly  slid  the  brass  bolt  that  stood  under  the 
knob,  locking  herself  in  the  cabin. 

She  smiled,  a  little  nervously  and  yet  spirit 
edly,  as  she  caught  sight  of  the  other's  con 
cerned  and  puzzled  face.  Then  her  own  face 
became  quite  sober.  Again  McKinnon  was  con 
scious  of  a  faint  perfume  pervading  the  place. 
It  seemed  as  finely  feminine  to  him  as  the  rust 
ling  of  skirts.  And  again  he  was  impressed  by 
the  ebullient  sense  of  buoyancy,  of  youthful 


THE  TANGLING  SKEIN  83 

vigour,  which  persisted  about  her,  even  in  shad 
ow,  like  a  penumbra. 

"Could  I  speak  to  you?"  she  asked,  a  little 
disturbed  at  the  other's  continued  silence.  "I 
have  something  to  explain,"  she  continued, 
* '  something  in  which  you  might  help  me. ' ' 

The  flow  of  her  English  seemed  as  even  and 
liquid  as  the  flow  of  a  river,  yet  there  still  re 
mained  that  puzzling  and  piquant  undercurrent 
of  the  exotic. 

"You  do  not  mind?"  she  asked,  obviously 
puzzled  by  his  continued  aloofness.  It  was  plain 
that  she  was  not  a  woman  who  frequently  asked 
favours  of  men. 

"Of  course  I  don't  mind!  It's  only  that  a 
visit  like  this  might  be  misconstrued " 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  ambiguously  and 
sank  into  the  steamer-chair.  McKinnon  dis 
creetly  slid  back  the  shutter  of  his  cabin  window. 
He  took  the  further  precaution  of  drawing  the 
faded  denim  curtain.  The  woman  watched  the 
operation  with  her  mild  and  meditative  gaze 
still  on  the  figure  before  her.  Then  she  mo 
tioned  for  him  to  sit  down.  She  noticed  his 
eyes  on  the  door,  apparently  in  apprehension, 
and  she  smiled  a  little.  Then  she  became  serious 
again  and  peered  studiously  about  the  room. 

"You  could  put  me  in  there?"  she  suggested, 


84  THE  TANGLING  SKEIN 

with  a  satiric  motion  towards  the  operator's 
closet-door. 

McKinnon  seemingly  took  her  query  in  good 
faith,  for  he  threw  open  the  door  and  peered 
inside.  His  troubled  look  returned  to  him. 

"There  would  scarcely  be  room,"  he  ex 
plained.  "It's  so  crowded  and  shallow,  you 
see." 

"It  would  be  an  adventure,"  she  maintained, 
making  due  allowance  for  his  lack  of  humour. 
He  could  see  that  she  was  wringing  some  inap 
posite  amusement  out  of  the  situation.  It  threw 
him  on  his  guard  for  a  moment,  but  only  for  a 
moment.  The  open  candour  of  her  glance  dis 
armed  his  abashed  suspicion. 

He  agreed  with  her  that  it  would  indeed  be 
an  adventure.  He  even  laughed  at  the  thought 
of  it,  infected  a  little  by  her  spirit  of  quiet  au 
dacity.  Yet,  in  spite  of  himself,  as  he  let  his 
eyes  rest  on  hers,  there  remained  with  him  the 
stubborn  yet  vague  impression  that  her  pres 
ence  there  was  the  preamble  for  some  deeper 
and  undivulged  purpose.  The  seconds  length 
ened  themselves  into  a  minute,  and  still  neither 
spoke.  They  were  still  gazing  at  each  other 
when  the  sound  of  a  quick  step  on  the  deck  with 
out  fell  on  their  ears. 

The  woman  stood  up  with  a  little  gasp.  The 
look  on  her  face  changed  into  one  of  appeal.  Mo- 


THE  TANGLING  SKEIN  85 

Kinnon,  impressed  with  her  fear,  also  rose  to 
his  feet.  They  could  hear  the  locked  cabin  door 
being  impatiently  shaken. 

"What  shall  I  do?"  whispered  the  woman. 
The  operator  pointed  towards  his  clothes-closet. 
It  was  the  only  resource.  He  motioned  for  her 
to  step  into  it  as  he  himself  crossed  the  cabin 
towards  the  outer  door,  on  which  someone  was 
now  openly  and  impatiently  knocking. 

There  was  a  fleeting  rustle  of  drapery,  a 
warning  pressure  of  one  slender  finger  against 
the  woman's  lips,  and  a  moment  later  she  had 
disappeared  into  her  place  of  hiding  and  had 
swung  back  the  door.  McKinnon,  as  soon  as 
he  saw  she  was  safe,  withdrew  his  bolt.  In  the 
frame  of  light  stood  the  great,  wide-shouldered 
figure  of  Duffy.  He  waited  there,  without  ad 
vancing,  for  several  seconds.  McKinnon  could 
see  his  slowly  roving  eye  as  it  took  in  each  de 
tail  of  the  stateroom.  He  betrayed  no  surprise 
and  no  curiosity,  but  across  his  face  flitted  a 
veiled  look  of  apprehension. 

"Are  you  alone?"  he  asked. 

McKinnon  nodded. 

"Busy?"  he  next  demanded. 

The  single  word  bristled  with  something  more 
than  interrogation.  But  McKinnon  felt  that  he 
was  not  in  a  position  to  resent  it.  He  stooped 


86  THE  TANGLING  SKEIN 

over  the  last  of  his  wireless  models  and  lifted 
the  box  back  against  the  closet  door. 

"I  am  packing  away  my  stuff  for  the  night," 
he  answered  as  he  turned  back  to  his  operating- 
table  and  caught  up  his  earphones.  His  action 
in  doing  so  was  simply  a  rite  of  repudiation. 
The  gesture  was  not  lost  on  the  other  man. 

"I  guess  you're  busy  to-night,"  he  said;  "I 
won't  take  up  your  time.  All  I  wanted  was  to 
close  up  that  agreement  of  ours." 

He  reached  into  his  pocket  and  drew  out  his 
roll  of  bills  placidly,  with  the  businesslike  un 
concern  of  a  man  contemptuous  of  small  trans 
actions.  He  counted  off  nine  hundred  and  forty 
dollars,  folded  them  together,  and  flung  them 
on  the  pine  table.  McKinnon,  all  the  while,  was 
thinking  of  the  half-shut  closet  door. 

"That  puts  us  even,  doesn't  it?"  Duffy  said, 
backing  away  a  little.  His  movement  brought 
him  nearer  to  the  ever-menacing  door. 

McKinnon  was  not  in  a  state  to  argue  it  out 
with  him.  His  strangely  self-frustrating  wish 
was  still  to  cry  everything  off.  But  he  was 
afraid  of  some  second  complication.  And  he 
had  his  own  reasons  why  these  should  not  arise. 

"Yes,  that  makes  us  even,"  he  admitted,  sud 
denly  remembering  he  had  a  witness  to  the 
strange  business  in  hand.  The  intruder  stepped 
back  to  the  table  again. 


THE  TANGLING  SKEIN  87 

"Then  we'll  both  sign  this  slip  of  paper,  so 
we'll  know  where  we  stand,"  he  suggested. 

After  Duffy  had  ponderously  signed  his  name 
with  a  heavy,  gold-banded  fountain-pen,  the  op 
erator  took  his  place.  The  paper  seemed  noth 
ing  more  than  a  receipt,  yet  something  about  its 
wording  was  repugnant  to  him.  He  did  not 
take  time  to  analyse  his  feeling;  he  was  too 
oppressed  by  the  thought  of  the  woman  and  the 
near-by  door.  He  ventured  one  half-hearted 
objection,  however,  as  Duffy  thrust  the  pen  in 
his  hand. 

"I  can't  say  I  altogether  like  this,"  he  com 
plained. 

"Why  not!" 

McKinnon  forced  a  laugh. 

"It  sounds  like  an  army  commission." 

"Where  d'you  want  it  changed?"  Duffy  de 
manded  as  he  fell  to  pacing  the  cabin.  His  wan 
dering  threw  McKinnon  into  a  sudden  panic. 

"It's  not  the  wording — it's  the  signing  of  a 
thing  like  this." 

"Of  course  it  is,"  the  other  agreed,  mild  and 
indulging,  as  a  doctor  might  be  with  a  peevish 
and  restless  patient.  "But  weren't  you  saying 
you  wanted  to  make  this  every-day  work  of 
yours  a  little  more  romantic?" 

He  had  stopped  in  front  of  the  closet  door 


88  THE  TANGLING  SKEIN 

and  was  apparently  studying  the  faded  map  of 
the  Caribbean.  The  position  was  perilous. 

"Where  do  I  sign?"  demanded  McKinnon, 
bringing  the  other  man  back  to  his  side  at  the 
table. 

The  ink  was  scarcely  dry  on  the  paper  before 
a  change  crept  into  Duffy's  manner.  He  seemed 
more  sure  of  himself,  more  conscious  of  mastery 
over  an  ally,  who,  if  a  reluctant  one,  was  still 
an  ally. 

He  folded  the  receipt  and  dropped  it  into  his 
leather  wallet.  Then  he  placed  the  wallet  in 
his  breast  pocket;  his  movements  were  always 
ponderous  and  deliberative. 

"Remember,  this  means  a  devil  of  a  lot  to 
me.  I'll  have  to  depend  on  you  to  do  the  right 
thing  when  the  time  comes." 

"It's  not  that  bad,  is  it?"  the  operator  asked, 
still  with  an  effort  at  humour. 

"It  may  be  as  bad  as  either  of  us  could  im 
agine,"  Duffy  retorted. 

"If  that's  the  way  it's  shaping  I'd  better 
draw  out  of  it." 

McKinnon  seemed  more  and  more  resentful 
of  the  other's  attitude  of  masterfulness. 

Duffy  slowly  tapped  the  pocket  which  held 
his  wallet. 

"It's  too  late  for  you  to  draw  out  of  it,"  he 


THE  TANGLING  SKEIN  89 

declared  with  heat.  Then  his  mounting  tinge 
of  anger  went  suddenly  out  of  his  face. 

"  Pshaw!  what 're  we  squabbling  about,  any 
way?"  he  cried.  "We're  both  making  easy 
money  out  of  this,  and  that's  an  end  of  it.  "We'll 
have  time  to  talk  later  on.  And  I  guess  you're 
busy  to-night." 

There  was  a  veiled  tone  of  mockery  in  his 
voice  that  seemed  to  leave  McKinnon  a  little 
troubled.  He  followed  his  visitor  to  the  state 
room  door  in  silence. 

"We'll  pull  together,"  assuaged  Duffy  large 
ly,  suavely,  as  he  stepped  out  on  the  deck. 
"We've  got  to,  eh?"  He  laughed  a  little  as  he 
said  "Good-night." 

"Good-night,"  answered  the  operator. 

The  stateroom  door  had  scarcely  closed  be 
fore  the  woman  had  pushed  aside  the  model-case 
and  was  out  of  her  hiding-place.  Her  face  had 
lost  its  last  vestige  of  colour. 

"Oh !"  she  cried  pantingly,  and  nothing  more. 

"Hush!"  said  the  alarmed  operator,  listen 
ing  at  the  closed  door. 

She  stood  there,  breathing  hard,  with  her 
hand  on  her  breast.  Her  attitude  reminded  him 
of  the  night  before,  when  she  had  so  suddenly 
and  disturbingly  stepped  back  into  his  cabin. 

"What  is  it?" 

"That  man!"  the  woman  exclaimed.     She 


90 

looked  older  now  tinder  the  trying  white  light 
of  the  electrics.  Her  aura  of  belated  youth  had 
in  some  way  fallen  away  from  her.  "Madre  de 
Dios!  Do  you  know  who  that  man  is?" 

"He's  an  agent  named  Duffy,"  explained  Mc- 
Kinnon. 

"Duffy!" 

"Yes — he  is  acting  for  the  information  bu 
reau  of  the  Consolidated  Fruit  Concern." 

He  was  about  to  say  more,  but  on  second 
thoughts  he  kept  silent. 

"Duffy!"  once  more  cried  the  woman  in  de 
rision,  "Duffy!" 

Then  she  drew  herself  up  and  gazed  at  her 
companion  with  what  seemed  a  look  of  mingled 
wonder  and  contempt  wrinkling  her  low,  white 
brow. 

"And  you  two  are  working  together?"  she 
murmured. 

"Yes,  in  a  way." 

"But  how?"  she  demanded.  "How  are  you 
acting  with  him?" 

Her  alarm  did  not  seem  to  disconcert  him. 

"It's  not  exactly  a  partnership.  He's  simply 
shadowing  a  man  on  this  boat.  I've  promised 
to  help  him  out  when  the  time  comes." 

"How  help  him  out?" 

"Only  in  a  trivial  way." 

"But  how?" 


91 

"If  you  must  know,  by  holding  back  certain 
despatches. ' ' 

''But  whose  despatches?"  still  demanded  the 
woman. 

"Despatches  for  the  man  he's  shadowing,  of 
course." 

"But  still  you  don't  tell  me  who  this  man  is !" 
cried  the  impatient  woman.  McKinnon  obvi 
ously  found  it  hard  to  fathom  the  source  of  her 
anxieties. 

"I  mean  this  man  called  Ganley,"  he  ex 
plained,  concealing  his  growing  impatience. 

"Ganley!"  echoed  the  woman. 

"Yes,  Ganley,"  retorted  the  other.  He  no 
ticed  that  her  breath  was  coming  in  short  gasps 
by  this  time  and  that  her  face  was  as  white  as 
his  cabin  walls. 

"Ganley!"  she  cried.  "Why,  the  man  who 
went  out  of  this  cabin  five  minutes  ago  is  Gan- 
ley!" 


CHAPTER   Vin 

THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOABD 

THERE  was  a  silence  of  several  seconds. 

" That  man  was  Ganley?"  foolishly  repeated 
the  operator.  His  eyes,  as  he  peered  back  at 
the  woman,  were  almost  vacuous.  He  studied 
her  face,  perplexed  and  uncertain,  like  a  trav 
eller  studying  a  road-map.  He  had  expected 
surprises,  he  had  prepared  himself  for  emergen 
cies  :  but  this,  apparently,  was  more  than  he  had 
counted  on. 

The  frightened-eyed  woman  still  confronted 
him,  her  face  seeming  one  of  pity  touched  with 
fear.  When  she  next  moved,  her  gesture  was 
almost  that  of  a  person  wringing  their  hands. 

"And  you  have  promised  to  act  with  this 
man?"  she  little  more  than  whispered. 

"But  he  came  to  me  as  a  man  named  Duffy, 
the  man  who's  got  to  turn  Ganley  over  to  the 
authorities  at  Puerto  Locombia." 

Still  again  the  woman's  wide  and  pitying  eyes 
rested  on  his  face. 

93 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD   93 

"They  are  making  a  tool  of  you,"  was  all  she 
said. 

"0£  me?" 

"Of  you!  They  are  deceiving  you — they 
mean  to  make  use  of  you." 

"But  how?" 

The  woman  remained  silent.  McKinnon  stood 
before  her,  lost  in  a  moment  of  troubled  thought, 
puzzled  as  to  how  much  he  should  say  and  how 
much  it  would  be  best  to  leave  unsaid. 

"But  who  are  you?'1  he  suddenly  demanded, 
noting  her  quick  glance  down  at  her  little  jew 
elled  watch.  He  felt,  as  she  stood  there  com 
pelling  herself  to  calmness,  that  there  was  some 
thing  epochal  in  the  moment,  that  in  some  way 
the  uncomprehended  was  about  to  reveal  itself. 

He  turned  slowly  about  and  relocked  the  cabin 
door.  Then  he  sat  down  opposite  the  broken 
steamer-chair  in  which  she  was  already  seated. 

"You  want  to  know  who  that  man  is?"  she 
said  at  last,  perplexed  a  little  by  his  sudden  de 
cisiveness,  disturbed  by  the  hardening  of  his 
face. 

"I  want  to  know  who  you  are." 

"That  will  come  later,"  she  explained. 

McKinnon  studied  her  face,  line  by  line,  from 
the  pale  ivory  of  her  dark-browed  forehead  to 
the  tender  curve  of  her  almost  statuelike  chin, 
for  the  shadowy  and  thick-planted  lashes  did 


94   THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOAED 

not  lift  from  her  cheek  until  she  began  to  speak 
again. 

"You  want  me  to  explain  everything?7'  she 
asked. 

"Everything!" 

"The  man  who  was  in  this  room  is  Kaiser 
Ganley — King-maker  Ganley  they  call  him  ev 
erywhere  south  of  Guatemala.  His  business  is 
to  make  revolutions.  He  has  agents  in  almost 
every  one  of  the  Central  American  republics, 
in  New  York,  in  Cuba,  in  New  Orleans — every 
where.  When  he  sees  signs  of  unrest  he  sends 
a  man  to  strike  a  bargain  with  the  enemies  of 
the  government.  He  waits  like  a  buzzard  on  a 
housetop  until  his  meal  is  ready.  Then  he  is 
given  money,  and  he  brings  so  many  men  and 
so  many  carbines,  and  so  many  mules  and  ma 
chine  guns.  Sometimes  it's  for  the  patriots, 
sometimes  it's  for  railway  charters  or  for  mine 
rights.  Sometimes  it's  for  rubber  and  coffee 
concessions.  A  more  conciliatory  man  must  be 
made  dictator,  or  a  more  dependable  friend 
must  be  set  up  as  president.  That's  the  way  he 
won  the  Caqueta  Asphalt  concession;  that's  why 
he  never  dares  land  in  Brazil  or  be  seen  in 
Venezuela  again." 

She  paused  for  a  moment.    Then  she  added: 

"And  now  he  has  the  rebellion  in  Locombia. 
The  Locombian  president  has  been  called  the 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD   95 

'Friend  of  Foreigners';  he  has  been  good  to  the 
Americanos.  He  is  modern  and  progressive ;  he 
is " 

"Are  you  a  Locombian?" 

"I  am  not  a  Locombian,"  answered  the  wom 
an,  after  the  slightest  pause,  "but  I  have  my  in 
terests  in  that  country.  Oh,  believe  me,  I  know 
this  man  to  be  its  enemy.  He  is  fighting  for 
the  downfall  of  its  government.  His  plan  is 
made.  He  is  only  waiting  for  the  end.  Now, 
to-night,  while  we  sit  here,  his  men — deluded 
peons  and  beachcombers  and  paid  mercenaries 
— are  drawing  up  closer  and  closer  on  Guariqui. 
They  are  to  wait  there;  they  are  to  be  moved, 
like  wooden  pawns  on  a  chessboard,  when  he 
orders  it,  and  in  the  manner  he  orders." 

"Can't  you  tell  me  how  or  when?  Can't  you 
be  more  specific?"  , 

"On  the  thirteenth  of  the  month  a  revolution 
ist,  wearing  the  uniform  of  the  government,  is 
to  assault  an  American  citizen  in  the  Prado  of 
Puerto  Locombia.  A  Mobile  ore-boat  is  to  take 
the  assaulter  on  board  openly.  He  is  to  be 
dragged  ashore  again  by  government  officers. 
Roof-tiles  are  to  be  flung  down  on  these  officers 
as  they  pass  through  the  town.  Arrests,  of 
course,  will  follow.  That  will  arouse  the  peo 
ple — they  are  so  foolish  in  their  hate  for  the 
Americanos!  And  while  this  is  going  on,  many 


96   THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD 

miles  up  the  coast  machine  guns  will  be  landed, 
and  tubs  of  cartridges,  and  two  thousand  ri 
fles." 

"But  how  do  you  know  all  this?" 

"It  became  my  duty  to  know  it." 

"But  why?"  " 

"Because  my  brother  is  Arturo  Boynton,  the 
Locombian  minister  of  war,"  she  answered,  aft 
er  a  moment's  silence. 

McKinnon  gazed  at  her  in  a  mingling  of  won 
der  and  perplexity. 

"Is  he  a  Locombian?" 

"No." 

"Then  why  the  Arturo?" 

"That  was  a  concession  to  local  prejudices," 
she  answered,  after  still  another  moment's 
pause. 

"But  why  such  concessions?  You  see,  you'll 
have  to  be  perfectly  frank  with  me." 

She  smiled  a  little.  It  was  not  a  smile  of  con 
descension,  for  her  earnest  eyes  were  almost 
deprecative  as  she  looked  at  him. 

"That  will  mean  a  sad  lot  of  family  history," 
she  said  with  a  little  shrug,  as  exotic,  almost, 
as  the  Southern  inflection  of.  her  voice. 

He  laughed  a  little,  too,  for  all  the  anxiety 
that  was  weighing  on  him. 

"But  you  see  we  have  to  understand  each 
other's  position  in  this." 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD   97 

"My  brother  went  to  Guariqui  seven  years 
ago,"  she  said,  quite  sober  by  this  time.  "He 
was  compelled  to  go  there  to  look  after  my 
father's  nitrate  claims." 

"Your  father,  then,  was  an  American!"  in 
terrupted  McKinnon.  He  felt  glad,  in  some 
vague  way,  as  he  saw  her  head-shake  of  assent. 

"He  was  an  American  soldier,"  she  said,  and 
McKinnon  noticed  the  almost  phosphorescent 
kindling  of  her  eyes  as  she  uttered  the  words. 

"Yes,"  he  responded  encouragingly. 

"We  are — or,  rather,  we  used  to  be  the  New 
Orleans  Boyntons, ' '  she  answered.  * '  But  father 
had  interests  in  Argentina,  cattle  lands  and 
things,  and  property  in  Belgrano,  where  the 
English-speaking  colony  is,  just  outside  Buenos 
Ayres.  So  for  nine  years  Buenos  Ayres  was 
our  home — if  you  could  say  we  ever  had  a  home. 
But  as  I  wanted  to  tell  you,  my  brother  Arturo 
was  a  mining  engineer.  I  think,  too,  he  had  a 
good  deal  of  father's  spirit  of  adventure.  He 
saw  great  chances  in  Locombia,  but  what  was 
more  important,  he  found  that  the  altitude  of 
Guariqui  agreed  with  him.  So  he  stayed  on 
and  on,  and  kept  working  harder  and  harder, 
and  getting  newer  interests,  until  finally  he  un 
dertook  to  work  the  abandoned  government 
mines  with  Doctor  Duran.  They  were  copper 
mines." 


98   THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD 

"Do  you  mean  Duran  the  president?" 

"Yes;  but  that  was  before  he  had  been  made 
president.  Indeed,  when  Duran  first  actively 
entered  Locombian  politics  he  persuaded  my 
brother  to  join  him.  I  was  at  school  then,  in 
France — but  I  know  that  when  their  party  came 
into  power  my  brother  found  himself  in  Duran 's 
cabinet,  as  minister  of  war." 

"And  you  are  going  down  there  to  face  all 
this?"  McKinnon  asked,  with  a  vaguely  com 
prehensive  wave  of  the  arm. 

The  woman  said  "Yes."  She  looked,  for  all 
her  inalienable  aura  of  vitality,  very  slender, 
and  unsuited  to  the  ways  of  war,  above  all 
things,  to  the  ways  of  Latin- American  guerilla 
war. 

"But  that  seems  as  brutal,  as  unthinkable,  as 
a  girl  going  into  a  ring  with  two  prize-fighters, ' ' 
he  tried  to  explain  to  her. 

"Yes,  I  know;  but  I'm  not  going  into  the 
ring,"  she  answered.  "All  I  can  do  is  hover 
about  the  outside  edges  of  it,  and  do  what  I  can 
when  I  know  there  is  underhand  work,  when 
there  is  foul  play  like  this  going  on." 

"Foul  play  like  what?" 

"Like  this!"  she  averred,  tapping  the  deck 
with  her  shoe-heel. 

"Do  you  mean  the  Laminianf    Or  do  you 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD   99 

mean  certain  persons  who  are  on  the  Lamin- 
ian?" 

''Both,"  she  retorted. 

"Then  that  brings  us  to  the  question  of  just 
why  you  are  going  back  to  Locombia  in  such 
a  way  and  at  such  a  time,"  McKinnon  patiently 
insisted. 

"But  Guariqui  is  my  home — it  is  the  only 
home  I  have,  now."  She  noticed  the  fleeting 
look  of  concern,  that  amounted  to  anxiety,  over 
spreading  his  face,  and  she  hastened  to  add, 
with  her  slow  and  almost  mournful  smile :  "You 
know,  they  often  speak  of  it  as  the  Paris  of 
America!  We  don't  actually  tattoo  each  other 
down  there!  And  there's  something  appealing 
in  the  life,  when  you've  got  used  to  it — the  stir 
and  colour  and  romance  and  movement  of  it 
all." 

"But  you  see  you  haven't  yet  quite  explained 
iclfiy  you  are  going  back  to  Locombia." 

Her  deep  and  troubled  eyes  seemed  to  be 
weighing  him;  she  seemed  to  be  pondering  his 
possible  weakness  and  strength. 

"How  can  I  explain  to  you,  when  you're  a 
paid  agent  of  Ganley's?" 

"Don't  be  too  sure  of  that!"  McKinnon  ejac 
ulated,  with  more  feeling,  apparently,  than  the 
woman  had  expected. 

"You  mean  you  may  not  work  with  him?" 


100     THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOAED 

"If  you  like  to  take  it  that  way." 

"But  he  has  won  you  over  to  his  side — he  has 
captured  you  against  your  will!'* 

"I  don't  quite  understand,"  persisted  the  op 
erator. 

"No;  but  Ganley  does.  That's  why  he  has 
bought  you  over,  and  led  you  into  his  power 
in  this  way."  She  was  speaking  more  rapidly 
now;  a  brightened  colour  had  come  into  her 
cheeks. 

"But  how  am  I  in  his  power?"  McKinnon 
asked. 

"What  was  the  paper  you  signed?  What 
have  you  promised?  What  was  the  money  paid 
over  to  you  for?" 

"To  hold  back  certain  messages." 

"Yes,  to  hold  back  messages.  And  why  do 
that?" 

"So  that  this  man  Ganley — the  man  he  calls 
Ganley — can  be  held  at  Puerto  Locombia." 

"You  mean  the  other  man,  the  man  in  the 
cabin?  Then  you  don't  believe  what  I  have  said 
about  the  real  Ganley?" 

"I  don't  know  what  to  believe,"  the  non 
committal  McKinnon  complained,  studying  the 
woman's  face.  The  only  conclusion  he  came  to 
was  that  it  was  a  disturbingly  beautiful  one. 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment,  apparently  deep 
in  thought. 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD     101 

"I  don't  ask  you  to  believe  me  now — it's  not 
fair.  But  do  you  realise  where  you  stand?" 

The  solemnity  of  her  manner,  more  than  her 
words,  prompted  McKinnon  to  ask:  "Where 
do  you  think  I  stand?" 

"Before  danger  you  scarcely  dream  of,"  an 
swered  the  young  woman,  returning  his  gaze. 
"It's  not  so  much  that  you  have  formed  an  al 
liance  with  a  criminal,  an  outlaw,  who  would 
have  to  face  a  fusilado  the  moment  he  was 
caught  in  Guariqui.  But  it's  the  fact  that  he's 
as  treacherous  with  his  friends  as  with  his  foes. 
You  have  declared  yourself  his  partner.  He  will 
hold  you  to  it.  He  will  use  this  paper  you  signed 
as  a  proof  that  you  accepted  hush-money,  if  it 
suits  his  purpose  to  do  so.  He  will  claim  you 
agreed  to  work  with  him.  He  will  hold  this  over 
you  and  force  you  to  act  for  him." 

"But  why  should  I  stand  for  coercion  like 
that?"  asked  the  undisturbed  McKinnon. 

44 What  would  you  do?  You  can't  go  to  your 
captain;  nor  to  your  company.  It's  too  late 
for  that.  You've  cut  yourself  off  from  them. 
But  that  isn't  the  real  danger.  The  real  danger 
is  that  Ganley's  the  actual  head  of  the  revolu 
tionary  Junta,  and  that  he  can  now  show  that 
you,  too,  are  one  of  them!" 

"That  I'm  one  of  them?"  almost  laughed  the 
other. 


102     THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOAED 

"He  holds  a  document  which  practically 
brands  you  as  a  Locombian  revolutionist.  We 
are  being  carried  to  a  country  where  things 
move  strangely  and  quickly.  If  Duran  has  the 
upper  hand  when  we  reach  Puerto  Locombia, 
you  dare  not  make  one  move  against  this  man 
Ganley." 

"I  dare  not,  you  say?" 

"If  you  do,  he  will  have  you  handed  over  to 
Duran 's  officers  as  an  enemy  of  the  government 
— and  he  will  have  his  document  to  prove  it. 
If  Duran  has  been  deposed,  then  Ganley  is  the 
open  and  undisputed  master,  and  what  he  or 
ders  you  will  have  to  carry  out." 

"But  I'm  not  going  down  there  to  be  that 
government 's  catspaw ! '  * 

"How  will  you  escape  it?" 

"Well,  one  way  would  be  to  call  Ganley  up 
here  and  get  that  paper  back." 

Alicia  Boynton  laughed  quickly  and  quietly, 
with  an  upthrust  of  her  shoulders. 

"Can't  you  see  that  it's  too  late?  The  price 
has  been  paid;  the  bargain's  been  struck." 

"Not  necessarily!" 

"But  a  man  like  Ganley  never  trades  back. 
The  mistake  was  in  the  signing  of  the  paper. 
It  was  a  manifesto,  a  confession.  It  was  the  last 
will  and  testament  of  your  good  name." 

McKinnon,  who  had  been  pacing  the  cabin, 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD     103 

suddenly  swung  about  and  faced  the  young  wom 
an  in  the  steamer-chair. 

"Why  are  you  saying  all  this  to  me!"  he  de 
manded. 

Her  troubled  eyes  once  more  rested  on  him, 
almost  in  pity. 

"Because  we  are  facing  a  common  danger," 
she  answered  at  last.  "Because  we  may  yet 
have  to  work  together  to  escape  from  that  dan 
ger." 

"But  you  haven't  told  me  anything.  You 
haven't  explained  how  or  why  you  are  in  this 
danger. ' ' 

Again  her  studious  eyes  seemed  to  be  weigh 
ing  and  judging  him.  He  knew  by  the  anxiety 
that  crept  slowly  into  her  face  as  she  watched 
him  that  her  decision  was  not  altogether  a  flat 
tering  one. 

"I  am  here  because  there  was  no  one  to  take 
my  place,"  she  answered,  simply  enough.  "I 
can't  explain  everything  now,  but  I  knew  they 
were  plotting  against  Guariqui  and  against  my 
brother.  I  knew,  at  the  last  moment,  that  Gan- 
ley  was  hurrying  to  Locombia,  and  I  knew  that 
the  authorities  at  Washington  were  sending  a 
cruiser  to  the  Caribbean,  to  be  near  in  case  of 
trouble." 

"You  mean  the  Princeton?"  McKinnon  asked. 

The  woman  nodded. 


104     THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD 

"Listen,"  she  went  on  after  another  moment 
of  thought.  "Anything  may  happen  before  we 
reach  Puerto  Locombia.  If  the  Junta  have  car 
ried  out  Ganley 's  plans,  everything  will  be  ready 
for  his  coup  d'etat." 

Her  words,  for  some  reason,  did  not  impress 
him  as  much  as  she  had  expected.  She  felt  that 
perhaps  she  was  not  being  specific  enough,  that 
she  was  not  making  the  case  sufficiently  clear. 

"This  movement  against  Guariqui  will  not 
be  easy,"  she  hurried  on  to  explain,  "unless  the 
field-guns  have  already  been  landed.  The  pal 
ace  is  of  stone;  it  could  stand  to  the  last — it 
was  built  for  such  purposes.  It  could  hold  out 
for  weeks,  with  only  the  president's  body-guard, 
until  help  came." 

"From  where?"  asked  McKinnon. 

"That  is  what  I  must  explain.  When  Duran 
installed  the  electric-light  plant  at  Puerto  Lo 
combia  he  put  up  a  wireless  station,  one  at  the 
coast,  and  another  on  the  palace  at  Guariqui. 
Unless  the  guns  have  been  landed,  there  is  to  be 
no  assault  on  the  capital  until  Ganley  has  been 
heard  from.  Puerto  Locombia,  of  course,  will 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  revolutionists.  They  will 
destroy  the  wireless  station  at  the  coast.  There 
are  few  or  no  ships  there  now,  on  account  of  the 
yellow  fever.  It's  not  the  fever,  of  course,  but 
the  quarantine — the  weeks  and  weeks  of  impris- 


THE  PAWN  AND  THE  BOARD  105 

onment — they  are  afraid  of.  This  ship  will  be 
the  only  one  in  the  roadstead." 

She  watched  his  face  with  almost  a  touch  of 
impatience.  She  looked  for  some  glance  or  ges 
ture  of  enlightenment  on  his  part.  But  he  gave 
no  sign  of  comprehension ;  so  she  was  forced  to 
go  on,  explicitly,  like  a  tutor  slowly  demonstra 
ting  the  obvious  to  a  perversely  backward  pu- 
pil. 

"You  are  equipped  with  wireless.  That 
means  you  will  be  able  to  talk  with  Guariqui. 
If  Duran  and  my  brother  are  shut  up  there, 
calling  for  help,  you  will  be  the  only  person  to 
hear  their  messages.  Can't  you  understand? 
The  Guariqui  station  is  not  one  of  high  power. 
It  can't  possibly  call  beyond  the  coast.  Yet 
the  cruiser  is  to  be  lying  somewhere  between 
Culebra  and  Locombia,  waiting  to  help,  only  too 
anxious  to  interfere  at  the  first  official  call.  But 
that  call  can  never  reach  them  without  being  re 
layed  from  the  roadstead,  out  across  the  Carib 
bean.  You  may  be  the  only  person  who  can  hear 
and  understand  Guariqui 's  cry  for  help." 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS 

McKiNNON  drew  in  a  deeper  breath,  slowly 
and  leisurely,  but  he  did  not  speak. 

" Can't  you  understand ?"  the  young  woman 
in  the  blue  pilot-cloth  gown  was  anxiously  de 
manding  of  him.  "Ganley  has  thought  this  all 
out.  He  found  out  we  carry  wireless  equipment. 
He  knew  this  call  would  come  to  us.  He  has 
foreseen  that  we  could  relay  it  from  Puerto  Lo- 
combia  to  the  Princeton.  He  knows  that  you, 
and  you  alone,  could  send  that  message  out  of 
Locombia." 

"And  you  still  think  he's  tried  to  tie  me  up,  to 
keep  me  from  sending  it !  And  you  insist  that 
those  first  despatches  he  filed  were  simply 
blinds!" 

"Just  as  his  pretense  of  shadowing  Ganley 
was  a  blind!"  was  her  prompt  retort. 

McKinnon  fell  to  pacing  the  cabin  again.  The 
woman  watched  him  without  speaking.  Then 
the  operator  came  to  a  sudden  pause. 

106 


THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS        107 

"But  I'm  not  free  yet.  That  schemer  still 
has  me  tied  down  to  him,  as  you  say.  We 
haven't  got  that  paper  out  of  his  hands." 

The  woman  nodded  her  head  slowly,  without 
any  outward  emotion. 

"He  could  still  discredit  me  with  the  captain 
of  this  tub,  if  that  happened  to  be  part  of  his 
game!  He'd  show  us  both  to  be  a  pair  of  liars 
the  moment  we  tried  to  corner  him ! ' ' 

"And  once  at  Puerto  Locombia,  if  his  plans 
have  worked  out  as  he  wants  them  to,  he  can 
have  us  dragged  ashore !  And  if  Guariqui  falls 
he  can  have  us  held  as  enemies  of  the  new  gov 
ernment!" 

"This  is  a  nice  mess!"  calmly  meditated  the 
long-limbed  man  standing  before  her,  facing 
her,  for  the  moment,  with  abstracted  and  unsee 
ing  eyes.  He  even  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
the  presence  of  the  woman. 

She  rose  from  her  chair  and  stood  before  him. 

"We  have  to  get  back  that  foolish  paper,"  she 
said.  '  *  Before  everything  else  we  must  get  back 
your  receipt." 

The  quiet  determination  of  her  voice  startled 
him  a  little.  He  stood  regarding  her  with  a  new 
light  in  his  eyes.  All  his  training  had  been  re- 
pressional;  his  life  had  taught  him  to  resist 
every  threatened  surrender  to  the  emotional. 
Yet,  as  he  saw  her  there,  so  isolated  from  her 


108        THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS 

kind,  so  apparently  unfitted  for  the  tasks  before 
her,  so  insidiously  appealing  in  her  tender  wom 
anhood,  a  warm  and  winelike  current  of  sympa 
thy  began  to  creep  incongruously  through  his 
veins.  She  must  have  caught  some  inkling  of 
that  soft  invasion,  for  suddenly,  and  without 
apparent  reason,  her  face  deepened  in  colour 
and  then  grew  paler  than  before.  She  held  out 
her  hand  as  though  to  bridge  the  awkward 
silence  that  had  fallen  between  them.  McKin- 
non  saw  it  was  a  gesture  of  farewell. 

"Will  you  promise  me  to  do  nothing  until  I 
have  got  this  receipt  back  for  you?"  she  asked 
as  he  still  held  her  outstretched  hand. 

"But  why  should  you  fight  my  battles  for 
me?"  he  asked,  wincing  a  little  before  her  open 
and  courageous  gaze.  "I  can't  have  you  turn 
highwayman  for  me?" 

There  was  welling  up  in  him  a  wayward  sense 
of  guardianship  over  her  isolated  and  fragile 
figure,  of  responsibility  for  her  safety  and  well- 
being. 

"It  must  be  done,"  she  declared  with  a  bit 
terness  that  surprised  him  a  little.  ' '  There  are 
two  doors  to  Ganley's  cabin.  It  is  one  of  a  suite. 
I  can  get  in  through  one  of  those  doors." 

"Through  one  of  those  doors?"  echoed  the 
man  before  her. 

"Yes;  to-night." 


THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS        109 

"To-night?"  cried  McKinnon,  looking  down' 
at  her  in  mingled  protest  and  astonishment. 

"Hush!"  she  warned,  with  her  fingers  held 
up  close  before  his  face.  Their  accidental  con 
tact  with  his  lips  sent  a  responsive  thrill 
through  his  nervous  body. 

"But  I  won't  hear  of  you  doing  this  sort  of 
thing  just  because  I've  been  all  kinds  of  a  fool. 
I'm  going  to  this  man  Duffy,  or  Ganley,  or  what 
ever  his  name  is — I'm  going  to  face  him  myself 
and  make  him  put  this  whole  thing  right." 

"That  is  impossible,"  she  warned  him  in  her 
tense  whisper.  "You  do  not  understand.  You 
don't  know  this  man's  ways." 

He  could  see  some  definite  yet  mysterious  fear 
shadowed  on  her  face. 

"But  think  of  what  you're  threatening  to 
do!"  McKinnon  argued.  "You  have  to  break 
into  this  brute 's  cabin  and  steal  back  a  receipt ! 
Think  of  the  risk  you'd  be  running!" 

"It  has  to  be  done;  the  sooner  it's  done  the 
better." 

"But  why  does  it  have  to  be  done  in  this 
way?"  persisted  McKinnon. 

"Because  you  must  not  do  it!" 

"Why  not?" 

"It  would  be  like  cannonading  canaries — you 
must  save  yourself  for  the  bigger  risks!" 

Her  unuttered  misery,  her  inarticulate  anx- 


110       THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS 

iety,  more  and  more  disturbed  and  depressed 
him.  But  there  were  many  things  on  which  he 
was  still  uncertain,  and  above  all  things  he  knew 
that  he  must  go  slow. 

The  woman  confronting  him  must  have  seen 
some  flash  of  doubt  on  his  face,  for  she  caught 
at  his  arm  with  a  sudden  little  movement  that 
was  as  imploring  as  it  was  feminine. 

' '  You  don 't  trust  me  1  You  don 't  believe  what 
I  have  told  you?"  she  cried  in  her  hurrying, 
low-toned  whisper. 

"No!  no!  It's  not  that!"  McKinnon  an 
swered.  "But  I  can't  quite  see  my  way  out— 
I  can't  see  what  it's  all  leading  to." 

"But  nothing  can  happen  now,  here  at  sea. 
And  you  will  understand  later.  Promise  me 
you'll  wait!" 

"Yes;  but  wait  for  what?" 

"Until  you  are  free  to  act,  and  you  know 
what  I  have  said  is  true." 

He  took  a  turn  up  and  down  the  cabin.  "7s 
this  paper  so  important?  I  mean,  isn't  this  a 
lot  of  fuss  and  feathers  about  a  small  thing?" 

"It's  one  of  the  small  things  that  count  in 
war — and  this  is  war." 

Still  again  he  felt  the  inapposite  and  insidi 
ous  appeal  of  her  womanhood.  It  wound  about 
him  and  tugged  at  him,  eroding  away  his  self- 
will,  his  old-time  careless  audacity  of  spirit,  like 


THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS        111 

a  current  eating  under  a  sand-bank.  It  made 
sacrifice  on  her  behalf  seem  a  burden  to  be  al 
most  gladly  borne. 

"Only  promise  me  that  you'll  wait!"  she 
pleaded.  His  career  had  been  one  of  much  con 
tention  ;  but  never  before  had  he  been  compelled 
to  fight  against  what  seemed  his  own  self-inter 
est.  He  felt,  in  doing  so,  that  he  was  being 
thrust  and  involved  in  entanglements  which 
should  have  been  evaded  as  mere  side  issues. 
He  even  marvelled  at  his  sheer  lack  of  resent 
ment  against  capitulation  so  indeterminate  and 
yet  so  complete. 

"Promise  me!"  she  whispered.  He  wanted 
to  beg  for  time,  to  think  things  out,  but  her 
troubled  face  was  bewilderingly  close  to  his,  and 
the  memory  that  he  was  not  innocent  of  the  anx 
iety  weighing  upon  her  made  him  more  and 
more  miserable. 

"I  promise,"  he  answered.  The  clasp  of  her 
hand  sent  a  second  inapposite  tingle  of  joy 
through  his  body. 

"You  will  wait?"  she  insisted,  as  though 
doubly  to  impress  on  each  of  them  some  future 
course  of  action.  "You  will  say  nothing  until 
I  have  done  what  I  promise?" 

"There's  nothing  I  can  say  or  do,"  he  re 
plied,  still  demanding  of  himself  if  it  could  be 
right  to  put  her  to  such  a  test. 


112       THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS 

"Then  remember,"  she  said,  and  her  voice 
was  little  more  than  a  whisper,  "we  are  acting 
together." 

McKinnon  still  stood  there,  watching  her,  as 
she  opened  the  cabin  door  and  stepped  out  to 
the  wet  and  gloomy  deck.  Something  about  her 
departure  so  paralleled  that  of  the  man  who  had 
gone  before  her  that  the  coincidence  struck  him 
with  a  start.  It  brought  the  thought  through 
him  like  an  arrow  that  he  had  openly  pledged 
himself  to  two  opponents,  that  he  had  made  a 
promise  to  act  for  two  enemies.  This  was  fol 
lowed  by  a  second  and  an  equally  disturbing 
thought:  he  had  not  once  been  honest  or  open 
with  her;  he  was  letting  his  lack  of  candour 
make  her  path  a  harder  one  than  she  deserved. 

He  sprang  through  the  door  after  her,  swept 
by  a  sudden  fierce  fire  of  self -hate,  of  contempt 
for  the  things  in  which  he  found  himself  in 
volved. 

A  moment  later  he  had  called  her  back  across 
the  midnight  gloom  of  the  dipping  and  rocking 
deck. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked,  as  she  stepped  into 
the  cabin,  her  eyes  wide  with  wonder.  He  made 
sure  the  deck  was  empty,  and  closed  the  door. 
Then,  with  an  obvious  effort,  he  wheeled  about 
and  faced  her. 

"It  may  not  be  too  late  for  us  to  get  out  of 


THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS        113 

this  mess,"  he  told  her,  "and  get  out  of  it  in 
the  right  way." 

"But  what  way?"  she  asked,  puzzled  by  his 
unheralded  change  of  front. 

"The  quick  way,  and  the  sure  way,"  he  an 
swered,  swinging  across  the  cabin  until  he  stood 
before  his  switch-lever.  His  hand  hovered  about 
the  apparatus  as  he  went  on.  "I  mean  our  way 
out  is  to  get  the  Princeton  now,  to-night,  before 
she's  out  of  touch  with  us !  I  mean  it's  best  for 
us  to  play  our  card  at  once,  when  it's  not  too 
late !  The  Princeton  has  already  passed  us  on 
her  way  to  Culebra,  to  replace  the  gunboat 
Eagle;  she's  leaving  us  farther  and  farther  be 
hind  every  hour!" 

'  *  But  what  do  we  gain  by  getting  the  Prince 
ton  now!"  Alicia  Boynton  demanded. 

He  was  at  the  key  by  this  time,  and  the  "crash 
—rash — rrrrash"  of  the  great  spark  as  it  leaped 
and  exploded  from  the  discharging-rods  filled 
the  cabin  with  a  peremptory  and  authoritative 
tumult  of  sound.  The  woman  stood  watching 
him,  spellbound.  A  moment  later  McKinnon's 
left  hand  was  fidgeting  above  his  tuner,  while 
his  right  pressed  a  'phone-receiver  close  to  his 
ear. 

"What  we've  got  to  do  is  to  get  that  cruiser 
to  Puerto  Locombia,"  he  hurriedly  went  on,  as 
he  waited  there,  without  looking  up.  * '  She  will 


114       THE  CONVERGING  TEAILS 

be  needed;  she  is  needed;  and  she  may  as  well 
be  told  of  it  now.  I  mean  we'll  do  what  we've 
got  to  do  while  the  way's  still  clear." 

"But  how  can  you  order  about  an  American 
warship  as  though  it  were  a  street  cab  you'd 
hired?" 

"It  won't  be  me — it'll  be  the  wireless  that 
does  the  ordering." 

"But  who  are  you?" 

"That's  just  it — I'm  nobody!  I'm  like  those 
canaries  you  spoke  of;  I  wouldn't  be  worth  can 
nonading." 

>  "But  you  have  no  power  to  do  this!"  de 
murred  the  still  puzzled  woman.  "You  are  not 
the  President  of  the  United  States !  You  have 
no  authority  to  order  about  a  battleship ! ' ' 

"I'll  make  the  authority!"  he  cried  as  he 
sprang  to  his  key  and  once  more  called  through 
the  night.  "You've  said  just  enough  to  give 
me  my  chance  to  make  my  course  plain.  Ameri 
can  interests  are  threatened  in  Guariqui  at  this 
very  moment;  American  property  has  already 
been  destroyed  in  Puerto  Locombia.  It's  only 
forestalling  the  inevitable.  I  mean  I'm  going 
to  send  an  official  call  for  that  cruiser  myself!" 

The  woman  looked  at  him  in  amazement  as  he 
swung  about  and  clapped  the  'phones  once  more 
to  his  ears. 

"If  we  can  only  get  her!"  he  half  groaned 


THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS        115 

as  he  stood  with  bent  head  and  fixed  eyes,  lis 
tening,  while  the  seconds  dragged  slowly  by. 
"If  we  can  only  get  her !"  he  repeated  less  hope 
fully. 

He  turned  to  his  switch  again,  and  still  again 
the  great  blue  spark  erupted  and  crashed  and 
volleyed  from  the  discharging-rods.  Then  again 
he  waited  and  listened,  the  lines  on  his  face 
deepening  in  the  hard  light  from  the  electrics 
above  him. 

"The  night's  against  us!"  he  exclaimed  al 
most  despairingly  as  the  switch  came  purringly 
down  on  the  contact-pins  and  his  hand  once  more 
went  out  to  his  key-lever.  His  fingers  closed  on 
the  handle,  but  the  intended  call  was  not  sent. 
No  nervous  flash  of  blue  flame  bridged  the  wait 
ing  spark-gap.  For  even  before  he  turned,  Mc- 
Kinnon  knew  that  his  cabin  door  had  been  sud 
denly  opened  and  that  a  squat  and  thick-set  fig 
ure  stood  there  peering  in  at  him. 

"What 're  you  workin'  that  key  for?"  de 
manded  the  figure.  It  was  the  thunderous  voice 
of  the  ship's  master,  Captain  Yandel.  McKin- 
non  remembered  that  he  must  have  overheard 
the  spark-kiss  at  the  masthead,  from  the  bridge. 

"What 're  you  tryin'  to  send  out  there?"  re 
peated  the  officer. 

"I'm  getting  distances  from  a  Standard  Oil 


116       THE  CONVEKGING  TEAILS 

tank,"  answered  the  man  at  the  table  after  just 
a  moment  of  hesitation. 

"Distances  at  this  time  o'  night!" 

"You  heard  what  I  said,  didn't  you!"  cried 
the  defiant  McKinnon. 

The  enraged  officer  let  his  glance  wander  to 
the  woman,  who  had  backed  away  a  little,  as 
near  to  the  door  as  possible.  McKinnon  did  not 
move,  but  he  was  thinking  both  hard  and  fast. 
He  had  already  seen  the  look  on  the  other  man's 
face. 

"What's  this  woman  doing  here?"  demanded 
Captain  Yandel. 

The  long-limbed  operator  shot  up  out  of  his 
chair  angrily  at  the  barb  in  that  thunderous 
voice.  He  kept  telling  himself  to  keep  cool.  It 
was  plainly  to  be  seen  that  he  was  still  untu 
tored  in  accepting  insolence  without  protest.  Yet 
still  again  the  challenge  was  flung  at  him. 

"What's  this  woman  doing  in  this  station  at 
this  time  o'  night?" 

McKinnon  turned  slowly  about. 

"Shall  I  tell  him?"  he  asked.  His  voice  was 
so  quiet  and  seemingly  self-contained  that  the 
woman's  first  blind  panic  of  fear  slipped  away 
from  her. 

"Yes,  tell  him,"  she  answered. 

The  captain  strode  into  the  cabin.  He  stood 
behind  Alicia  Boynton,  a  little  to  one  side ;  Me- 


THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS        11? 

Kinnon,  from  the  operating-table,  faced  the  in 
truder.  The  tones  of  his  voice  as  he  spoke  car 
ried  a  tacit  reproof  to  his  superior,  a  reproof 
for  the  boisterous  note  that  had  been  thrust 
upon  their  quiet  and  orderly  talk. 

"This  woman  is  my  wife!" 

"Your  what?"  cried  the  captain. 

"This  woman  is  my  wife!"  repeated  the  op 
erator,  without  so  much  as  a  glance  at  the  pant 
ing  girl's  colourless  face.  "As  you  may  have 
the  discernment  to  discover,  she  is  a  civilised 
being,  and  brutality  has  no  particular  fascina 
tion  for  her!" 

"And  what's  all  that  to  do  with  it?"  demand 
ed  the  captain,  warming  up  to  a  scene  from 
which  he  could  usually  wring  his  sardonic  de 
lights. 

"It  has  this  to  do  with  it — that  she  is  making 
this  trip  as  a  passenger.  I  mention  the  fact  be 
cause  you  may  see  her  in  this  cabin  again,  at 
many  times,  and  at  hours  quite  as  unusual  as  the 
present." 

"I  will,  will  I?"  retorted  the  other. 

"You  will!  And  what's  more,  so  long  as  I 
do  my  duty  by  this  ship,  and  by  my  company, 
her  presence  here  calls  for  no  insolence,  either 
official  or  unofficial!" 

"You  be  damned!"  roared  the  master  of  the 
ship,  aghast  at  such  effrontery. 


118        THE  CONVERGING  TRAILS 

"There  again  I'm  afraid  I  must  both  disap 
point  you  and  disagree  with  you.  And  at  the 
same  time  I'd  like  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
fact  that  this  is  a  wireless  station,  and  that  it 
stands  under  the  protection  of  the  Berlin  Inter 
national  Concordat!" 

' '  To  hell  with  you  and  your  Concordats !  This 
is  my  ship " 

"Precisely;  and  I,  unfortunately,  have  been 
put  here  to  do  my  work,  and  I'm " 

"Yes,  by  Heaven !"  broke  in  the  irate  captain, 
"you're  here  to  do  your  work !  You  were  stuck 
in  here  under  my  nose,  for  reasons  I  don't  un 
derstand;  but  when  you're  here  you're  goin'  to 
do  your  work  as  I  say!  And  what's  more,  I 
want  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  I  intend  to  stay 
master  o'  this  ship!  And  while  I'm  master  o' 
this  ship  I  want  no  insolence  from  upstart  wire- 
stretchers  !  So  you  do  your  despatchin'  in  reg 
ular  hours,  and  when  I  say  so,  or  I'll  ship  you 
back  to  your  company  in  irons!" 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  KEVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD 

THE  captain  of  the  Laminian  wheeled  about 
and  strode  out  of  the  cabin,  swinging  the  door 
shut  with  a  slam  that  loosened  flakes  of  white- 
lead  paint  from  the  ceiling-boards. 

"So  he's  against  us,  too!"  murmured  the  op 
erator. 

There  was  a  moment  of  unbroken  silence  be 
fore  the  woman  looked  up. 

"Why  did  you  say  that  to  him?"  she  demand 
ed,  trembling  with  indignation.  Even  her  voice 
shook  a  little  as  she  spoke.  "How  dare  you  say 
a  thing  like  that?" 

McKinnon  crossed  the  room  until  he  stood  al 
most  at  her  side. 

"I  had  to  say  that,"  he  answered.  "It  was 
the  only  way  out." 

"A  lie — a  base  lie  like  that — the  only  way 
out?" 

"Yes,  the  only  way,  for  now  that  man  must 
not  suspect." 

119 


120       REVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD 

" Suspect  what?" 

"What  each  of  us  knows!" 

"But  you  have  just  challenged  his  power; 
you've  disclaimed  his  authority!  What  can  he 
do?" 

"He  can  do  anything!  On  the  high  seas  he's 
king  over  this  little  floating  kingdom  of  his." 

"And  you,  too,  are  under  him?" 

"As  much  as  one  of  his  stokers,  in  a  way." 

"But  what  have  you  gained  by  a  lie  like 
this?" 

He  found  it  hard  to  understand  her  scruples, 
to  fathom  her  indignation.  He  stopped  her  as, 
she  started  to  speak  again. 

* '  Wait !  Don 't  say  anything  more  until  I  try 
to  explain  what  it  means  to  you. ' ' 

He  peered  out  along  the  deck  and  then  slipped 
the  bolt  in  the  cabin  door  before  he  turned  to 
her  again. 

1 *  Listen !  What  I  have  to  say  is  only  the  other 
half  of  your  own  story,  of  what  you  yourself 
have  said.  If  Duran  and  his  army  are  shut  up 
in  Guariqui,  it's  because  they're  there  without 
ammunition!" 

"You  know  that?"  she  cried. 

"Yes;  and  this  man  Ganley  knows  it.  He 
knows  it  because  he's  been  the  cause  of  it.  Six 
hundred  thousand  rounds  of  ammunition  went 
out  of  Mobile  for  the  Locombian  troops,  for 


REVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD       121 

Ulloa  and  his  men.  They  were  carried  to  Puerto 
Locombia  on  the  Santa  Anna,  secretly,  in  bar 
rels  that  were  labelled  and  invoiced  as  cement, 
so  they  could  be  shipped  on  to  Guariqui  with 
out  suspicion.  But  Ganley  or  the  Junta  or  their 
spies  got  to  know  of  it.  The  Santa  Anna  was 
scuttled  in  the  roadstead  at  Puerto  Locombia. 
Those  cartridges  went  to  the  bottom — forty-six 
barrels  with  double  heads,  the  heads  holding  a 
sprinkling  of  cement  and  the  main  space  full  of 
cartridges  packed  in  excelsior.  Every  pound 
of  it  went  down.'* 

"This  can't  be  true!"  almost  groaned  the 
girl  at  his  side. 

'•Every  word  of  it's  true.  But  let  me  go  on. 
De  Brigard  and  his  men  have  been  in  almost 
as  bad  a  predicament.  This  advantage  was  use 
less  unless  he  had  ammunition  for  his  own  men. 
That's  where  Ganley  came  in.  His  agents  found 
that  ground  iron  slag,  packed  in  cases,  weighed 
up  to  just  about  what  a  case  of  cartridges  would. 
So  they  bought  eighty-eight  cases  of  iron  slag 
from  a  Hudson  River  factory  town  and  ferried 
it  down  to  New  York.  It  was  consigned  to  Lo 
combia,  properly  enough,  as  basic  iron  silicate 
for  fluxing  purposes.  The  law  compels  all  such 
exporters  to  file  with  the  port  collector  a  distinct 
declaration  of  the  goods  shipped,  the  country 
shipped  to,  and  the  name  of  the  consignee.  This 


122       EEVEESE  OF  THE  SHIELD 

lias  to  be  accompanied  by  oath.  Besides  the  due 
inspection  of  the  shipment,  the  shipper  has  to 
make  his  declaration  before  the  consul  of  the 
country  to  which  any  such  goods  are  sent.  All 
this  was  done." 

"But  how  do  you  know  this?" 

"Let's  say  that  I  stumbled  upon  it  in  my 
work  as  a  wireless  operator.  But  here  is  the 
real  point:  in  some  way,  which  needn't  now 
concern  us,  those  innocent  boxes  of  powdered 
slag  were  tampered  with.  They  became  cases 
neatly  packed  with  ammunition,  with  just 
enough  iron  silicate  thrown  in  to  fill  up  the 
chinks  and  cover  the  real  contents.  In  other 
words,  Ganley  and  his  men  have  sent  out  of 
New  York  five  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
rounds  of  ammunition,  consigned  to  the  revolu 
tionary  Junta  at  Puerto  Locombia!" 

"But  how  do  you  know  this!"  once  more  de 
manded  the  listening  woman. 

"Let  me  finish,  please.  Along  with  those  car 
tridges  were  sent  eight  cases  of  'structural 
iron.'  These  cases,  in  reality,  contain  eight  hun 
dred  Eemington  rifles.  And  not  only  has  this 
stuff  been  sent  out  of  New  York  by  Ganley  and 
his  men,  but  these  guns  and  cartridges  at  this 
very  moment  are  on  this  ship,  and  under  this 
very  deck!" 

Alicia  Boynton  sank  slowly  down  into  the 


steamer-chair  against  which  she  had  been  lean 
ing.  McKinnon  could  see  that  her  breath  was 
coming  fast  and  short. 

"This  can't  be  true!"  she  whispered,  letting 
her  hands  fall  weakly  between  her  knees.  ' '  They 
may  have  said  this,  but  it  was  only  to  deceive 
you,  to  point  out  some  false  trail ! ' ' 

' '  One  moment,  until  I  explain.  I  am  only  the 
wireless  operator  on  this  boat.  I  am  a  new 
comer,  as  well,  for  this  is  my  first  run.  One 
hour  before  the  Laminian  sailed  her  old  opera 
tor  failed  to  report,  and  could  not  be  found.  The 
Be  Forest  Company  at  once  hurried  a  new  man 
over  to  the  ship.  I  am  that  mant" 

"Still  I  don't  understand.  Why  are  you 
here?" 

"That's  what  the  captain  of  this  ship  is  so 
uncertain  about.  That's  why  he's  so  down  on 
us!  That's  why  he's  sneaking  about  and  spy 
ing  on  this  cabin  like  a  cat  on  a  mouse-hole !  I 
don't  mean  that  he's  a  paid  agent  of  the  Junta 
—I  don't  even  believe  he  knows  what  this  ship 
is  carrying.  He's  only  soured  with  alcohol,  and 
jealous — bullheadedly  jealous — of  his  little 
world  of  authority." 

"But  still  you  haven't  told  me  who  you  are, 
or  why  you  came  here." 

"I  am  a  wireless  operator,"  he  said  after  a 
moment's  glance  into  the  girl's  clear  eyes,  as 


124       REVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD 

though  to  fathom  just  how  brightly  the  old-time 
fires  of  intelligence  were  burning  there. 

"What  were  you?"  she  was  asking  him,  her 
note  of  frustration  seeming  to  merge  into  one 
of  distrust. 

"I'll  have  to  go  back,  away  back,  to  make 
even  that  clear  to  you." 

"Please  do." 

"Well,  it  was  over  five  years  ago  that  I 
first  went  to  Peru,  to  look  after  the  electri 
cal  equipment  of  the  Pachita  Water  Pow 
er  Corporation.  They  had  to  protect  the  forests 
on  their  power  watersheds,  so  I  wired  their 
whole  countryside  and  equipped  their  fire-ran 
gers  with  portable  telephones.  That  meant  they 
could  cut  in  anywhere  and  send  for  help  in 
case  of  emergency.  But  a  peon  or  a  gaucho 
wouldn't  stand  for  witchcraft  like  that,  and  the 
mandador  sorrowfully  intimated  that  I  was  too 
modern. 

"So  I  next  found  myself  in  Nicaragua,  with 
the  task  of  superintending  certain  telegraph- 
construction  work  for  Zelaya.  When  that  was 
finished,  for  two  years  I  was  in  the  intelligence 
department  of  the  Brazilian  government,  but 
the  climate  wasn't  the  sort  that  a  white  man 
could  thrive  on,  and  I  had  to  give  it  up.  Then, 
when  the  Masso  Parra  trouble  first  broke  out 
Magoon  invited  me  over  to  Pinar  del  Rio  and 


REVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD        125 

consigned  me  to  a  wireless  station  there.  My 
real  duty  at  Pinar  del  Rio  was  to  forward  cipher 
reports  to  Havana  and  keep  the  authorities 
there  in  proper  touch  with  any  filibuster  move 
ments  in  the  affected  district.  Then  came  a  lean 
year,  when  I  tallied  coffee-bags  and  banana- 
bunches  from  a  roof-car  at  Port  Limon,  until 
I  elbowed  my  way  into  a  position  as  night  op 
erator  on  the  Costo  Rican  Northern.  It's  all 
very  tame  to  tell  about,  yet  it  had  its  compen 
sating  touches  of  adventure  now  and  then.  But 
I  wanted  to  get  North  and  work  out  some  elec 
trical  apparatus  that  had  been  preying  on  my 
mind.'* 

He  came  to  a  stop. 

"And  you  went  North?"  she  prompted  him. 

He  looked  up  with  his  quick  smile. 

"You  know  there's  a  certain  group  of  rocks 
on  the  Olancho  River,  near  Jutigalpa,  where 
the  water  is  beautifully  clear.  They  say  that  if 
you  once  dive  from  that  cliff,  no  matter  where 
you  go,  you  will  return  to  Olancho,  in  the  end, 
that  you  will  die  somewhere  along  the  fringe  of 
the  Caribbean.  I  took  that  dive." 

She  gave  vent  to  her  habitual  little  head- 
shake. 

"They  say  the  same  thing  if  you  drink  from 
the  Fontana  di  Trevi  in  Rome.  It's  very  pretty, 
but,  of  course,  it's  also  very  foolish." 


126       REVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD 

"In  one  way  it  is,  but  still  it's  hard  to  ex 
plain  how  the  unattached  man  from  the  North 
is  held  by  the  tropics.  That's  what  made  me 
catch  at  the  old  bait  when  I  had  a  chance  to  go 
to  the  Cantonese  District  to  look  into  the  Chi 
nese  boycott  affair.  And  it's  the  same  thing,  I 
suppose,  that's  taking  me  south  to  Locombia." 

The  girl  gave  vent  to  a  gesture  of  impatience, 

"That  doesn't  explain." 

"^Vhat  more  can  I  say?"  he  demanded.  He 
struggled  to  conceal  the  fact  that  he  was  afraid 
of  her,  that  life  had  always  taught  him  to  be 
wary  before  the  unknown  factor  in  the  equation 
of  adventure,  that  her  very  softness  was  some 
thing  against  which  he  had  to  steel  himself, 
grimly  and  resolutely. 

"You  can  say  everything  you  have  so  care 
fully  left  unsaid,"  was  her  unexpectedly  spirit 
ed  answer. 

"There's  nothing  more,"  he  protested,  feel 
ing  the  silence  grow  heavy  about  him. 

"I  trusted  you!"  said  the  girl  at  last. 

"And  I  would  trust  you!"  he  said  quite  open 
ly  and  honestly. 

"You  mean  you  are  not  free  to  speak?"  she 
persisted,  evading  the  personal  issue  which  his 
declaration  had  thrust  before  her. 

"I  mean  that  it's  worse  than  foolish  for  us 
to  quibble  over  side  issues  when  we're  confront- 


REVERSE  OF  THE  SHIELD        127 

ed  by  things  of  so  much  more  importance.  I 
mean,  for  instance,  that  this  steamer  is  carry 
ing  ammunition  to  De  Brigard  and  his  men. 
If  that  ammunition  is  delivered  into  the  hands 
of  the  Locombian  Government  instead  of  to 
their  enemies,  Ulloa  and  his  army  can  at  once 
re-enter  the  field." 

* '  But  why  re-enter  the  field  ?    They  are  free. ' ' 

"In  a  way,  yes;  but  they  are  now  shut  up 
in  Guariqui,  practically,  with  only  a  few  thou 
sand  reserve  cartridges  and  a  half  ton  of  use 
less  cordite.  But  the  moment  they  have  made 
sure  that  the  Laminian  is  safely  tied  up  at  the 
pier  in  Puerto  Locombia  they  plan  to  run  a 
banana-train,  armoured  with  boiler-plate,  down 
through  De  Brigard 's  lines  to  the  coast.  They 
will  fight  their  way  down,  probably  under  cover 
of  night,  run  their  cars  out  on  the  pier  next  to 
the  Laminian' s  berth,  seize  their  slag-boxes  as 
contraband  of  war,  and  fight  their  way  back  to 
Guariqui." 

"You  know  this!" 

"It  is  the  knowledge  of  this,"  he  guardedly 
replied,  "which  makes  me  say  that  you  and  I 
are  compelled,  or  will  be  compelled,  to  act  to 
gether.  ' ' 

Alicia  Boynton  did  not  speak  for  several  sec 
onds,  but  her  studious  eyes  were  fixed  on  Mc- 
Kinnon's  face. 


128       BEVEKSE  OF  THE  SHIELD 

"You  mean  that  you  might  be  able  to  warn 
them?"  she  asked  at  last. 

"I  mean  that  it  might  be  possible,  under  cer 
tain  conditions,  for  Duran's  palace  operator  to 
get  a  message  from  me.  It  might  also  be  pos 
sible  for  your  brother's  men  to  be  aboard  this 
boat  five  or  six  hours  after  that  message  was 
received.  So  why  not  explain  the  whole  situa 
tion  by  saying  that  both  of  us  chance  to  be  act 
ing  for  the  same  cause  ?  We  're  fighting  for  the 
same  end,  so  no  matter  how  it  hurts,  or  whatever 
may  happen,  we  must  stick  together!" 

"But  why  leave  any  mystery  between  us,  if 
we  are  already  that  close?"  asked  the  girl. 
"Why  can't  you  still  tell  me  everything?" 

"I'm  beginning  to  learn  that  you  can't  tell 
things,  in  my  calling,  until  you're  sure  of  your 
ground.  That's  why  I  had  to  fling  that  lie  to 
the  captain.  It's  warfare — and  I've  got  to  be 
true  to  my  people  before  everything  else." 

"But  who  are  your  people?"  she  persisted. 

He  laughed,  a  little  wearily,  a  little  ambigu 
ously.  "I  have  no  people,"  he  said.  "But 
we've  got  to  fight  for  Guariqui,  whatever  it 
costs  I" 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  MOVEMENT  IN  RETREAT 

IT  was  the  next  morning  that  McKinnon  came 
unexpectedly  face  to  face  with  Alicia  Boynton 
in  one  of  the  Laminian's  narrow  companion- 
ways.  He  was  hurrying  up  to  his  operating- 
room  after  a  brief  mockery  of  a  breakfast  in 
the  ship's  musty-odoured  dining-saloon,  and 
would  have  passed  on  with  nothing  more  than 
an  unbetraying  nod.  But  the  anxious-eyed 
young  woman,  with  a  barely  perceptible  gesture, 
signalled  for  him  to  turn  back. 

He  followed  her  at  a  discreet  distance  as  she 
stepped  into  a  damp-carpeted  side  corridor 
flanked  by  white-leaded  cabin  doors.  She  quiet 
ly  opened  one  of  these,  with  a  half-obliterated 
"7"  on  its  lintel,  and  motioned  him  inside. 

He  surmised  at  a  glance  that  it  was  her  state 
room.  He  next  noticed  that  she  had  closed  the 
door  and  locked  it.  Something  in  the  quick  de 
cisiveness  and  directness  of  her  movements 
touched  him  to  a  fleeting  moment  of  admiration. 

199 


130    THE  MOVEMENT  IN  EETEEAT 

He  was  conscious  of  the  fact,  as  he  turned  to 
her,  that  his  earlier  sense  of  uneasiness  had  de 
parted  from  him. 

"Listen,"  said  the  quiet-moving  and  clear- 
eyed  girl,  peering  impersonally  up  at  him  as  she 
spoke,  and  yet  standing  so  close  that  her  sleeve 
brushed  his  hand,  "I've  been  thinking  a  great 
deal  about  that  foolish  receipt.  It's  the  only 
thing,  now,  that  stands  between  us  and  our  free 
dom  of  action.  We  have  cleared  away  so  much : 
but  this  is  still  one  of  the  things  that  stand  be 
tween  us.  I  mean  it's  still  a  danger  to  you — 
much  more  a  danger  than  I  can  make  you  under 
stand,  unless  you  know  how  treacherous  and 
vindictive  this  man  Ganley  can  be." 

"But  why  should  I  be  afraid  of  Ganley?" 
McKinnon  maintained.  "I  can  fight  him  in 
his  own  way.  I  am  fighting  him  in  his  own 
way." 

"You  might  do  it  at  home,  in  your  own  coun 
try,"  she  warned  him,  "but  not  in  Locombia — 
not  anywhere  in  Latin  America.  He  knows  his 
ground  too  well,  his  tricks  and  his  chances,  his 
burrows  of  escape  when  he  needs  them.  He 
would  never  give  you  a  fighting  chance.  That's 
why  we  must  do  what  we  can,  at  once,  without 
delay." 

Still  again  he  marvelled  at  her  directness  of 
purpose  and  movement,  at  her  unequivocating 


THE  MOVEMENT  IN  EETREAT    131 

frankness  of  outlook.  It  implied,  lie  felt,  a  cour 
age  seldom  demanded  or  met  with  in  the  im 
mured  and  upholstered  walls  of  a  modern  wom 
an's  world. 

"I  thought  it  could  be  done  this  morning," 
she  went  on  hurriedly,  yet  in  a  tone  so  low  that 
he  had  to  stoop  a  little  to  catch  her  words. 
"Ganley  left  his  cabin  early;  I  was  ready  and 
waiting.  The  moment  he  was  away  I  let  myself 
into  his  room." 

She  stopped  to  smile  at  his  start  of  astonish 
ment. 

"I  had  won  over  my  stewardess,"  she  went 
on.  "A  few  dollars  completed  the  conquest  and 
made  everything  so  much  easier.  She  even 
found  a  pass-key  that  fitted.  I  could  see  it  was 
dangerous,  and  I  had  very  little  time.  But  I 
failed.  The  receipt  was  not  there." 

''But  you  can't  do  this  sort  of  thing,"  Mc- 
Kinnon  expostulated.  He  remembered  an  earlier 
speech  of  hers:  "It's  one  of  the  small  things 
that  count  in  war — and  this  is  war." 

4 'Isn't  it  rather  late  for  going  back  over  that 
ground?"  she  was  saying. 

"But  this  sort  of  thing  involves  too  much 
risk!  It's  too  unfair  to  you!" 

"I  looked  through  everything,  as  far  as  I 
could,"  the  girl  at  his  side  went  on,  not  heeding 


132    THE  MOVEMENT  IN  RETREAT 

his  protest.  "I  could  find  no  trace  of  the  re 
ceipt." 

* '  Of  course  not !  He  shows  the  value  he  puts 
on  it  by  carrying  it  about  on  his  person,  in  his 
wallet." 

"But  there  was  something  else  I  did  find 
out,"  she  said,  lowering  her  voice;  and  again 
he  was  struck  by  the  aura  of  sheer  vigour  that 
seemed  always  to  float  and  cling  about  her. 
"It's  the  fact  that  eight  mountain-guns  are  to 
be  shipped  out  of  Mobile  this  week,  invoiced 
and  crated  as  steam-laundry  equipment.  They 
are  Hotchkiss  rapid-fire  guns,  breech-loading, 
and  with  fixed  ammunition.  Those  are  the  guns 
that  are  to  be  landed  somewhere  in  northern 
Locombia.  They  can  be  taken  apart,  piece  by 
piece,  and  carried  up  through  the  hills  to  Guari- 
qui  on  burros." 

"And  he  had  the  coolness  to  send  out  a  wire 
less  about  that  equipment ! ' '  commented  McKin- 
non.  The  woman,  with  a  warning  look,  mo 
tioned  for  him  to  speak  more  quietly. 

"My  second  discovery  was  even  more  impor 
tant.  It  began  with  what  seems  to  be  a  note 
from  one  of  De  Brigard's  generals.  They  are 
still  afraid  of  some  counter-movement  to  seize 
their  cartridge  shipment.  I  mean  they  are  wor 
rying  about  the  very  ammunition  on  this  ship, 
the  cartridges  in  the  slag-boxes  you  spoke  about. 


THE  MOVEMENT  IN  EETREAT    133 

As  far  as  I  can  make  out,  they  intend  to  com 
mandeer  a  certain  track-motor  from  the  Con 
solidated  Fruit  Concern.  They  are  to  seize  it 
and  take  it  from  the  roundhouse  just  north  of 
Puerto  Locombia." 

1  'What  kind  of  track-motor?"  broke  in  the 
thoughtful-eyed  operator. 

"It's  a  specially  built  sixty-horse-power  Bir 
mingham  motor,  belonging  to  the  railway  de 
partment  of  the  Fruit  Concern.  I  can  remem 
ber  when  it  was  first  imported,  a  year  ago.  The 
new  railway  construction  engineers  have  been 
using  it  instead  of  a  coach  and  locomotive  for 
inspecting  the  ore-road  extensions  and  the  nar 
row-gauge  banana  lines  that  have  been  run  out 
into  the  Parroto  plantations.  You  see,  it's  so 
light  in  weight  that  six  or  eight  peons  can  lift 
it  about  on  the  track ;  they  can  reverse  it  with 
out  a  turntable.  De  Brigard's  men  intend  to 
run  this  motor  out  on  the  railway  along  the 
pier,  at  night,  and  keep  it  hidden  in  the  Fruit 
Concern's  weigh-scales  shed,  not  forty  feet  from 
where  the  Laminian  will  be  sure  to  dock.  Then, 
as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  the  slag-boxes  are 
to  be  quietly  dropped  over  the  side  and  piled 
up  in  the  motor's  tonneau.  Then  it  is  to  be 
hurried  out  along  the  railway  track  to  Cocoanut 
Hill,  where  everything  is  to  be  stored  in  the 


134    THE  MOVEMENT  IN  EETEEAT 

power-house  until  the  Junta  distributes  the  sup 
plies  to  De  Brigard's  men." 

"But  what  power-house  is  this?" 

"I  mean  the  electric-light  power-house  just 
outside  the  town." 

"This  is  worth  knowing!"  said  McKinnon, 
his  leaping  thought  already  struggling  to  bridge 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  future. 

"But  this  isn't  the  problem  that's  blocking 
our  way,"  his  companion  warned  him.  "The 
first  thing  we  must  do  is  to  recover  our  lost 
ground.  We  have  to  get  back  this  receipt  that 
ties  you  down  to  Ganley." 

"But  even  for  that  we  have  to  wait  our 
chance." 

"Why  not  make  the  chance?" 

"How  make  it?" 

"Ganley  is  in  hourly  dread  of  every  message 
that  comes  into  your  wireless-room.  He  insists 
on  censoring  anything  that  might  betray  him.1 
Then,  after  he  has  gone  to  bed,  to-night,  why 
not  send  for  him — hurriedly  call  him  up  to  your 
operating-room?  Why  not  insist  that  he  should 
come,  before  he  has  time  to  dress?  The  mere 
fact  that  he  carries  this  receipt  about  with  him 
on  his  person,  as  you  said,  shows  how  precious 
he  holds  it  to  be.  But  if  he's  caught  off  his 
guard  in  that  way  he  might  forget.  You  might 


THE  MOVEMENT  IN  EETREAT  135 

^N 

easily  enough  keep  liim  there  with  you  for  ten 
or  fifteen  minutes!" 

"You  mean  the  chances  are  that  he'll  simply 
throw  on  anything  that's  nearest  him — a  blan 
ket  or  a  bathrobe,  if  it's  late  enough?" 

"Yes." 

"But  there's  the  captain!"  objected  McKin- 
non.  ' '  There 's  the  scene  we  went  through  last 
night." 

"Then  wait  until  the  captain  has  gone  to  his 
cabin  for  the  night.  The  later  it  is  when  you 
call  Ganley  the  better.  I  can  be  waiting.  The 
moment  he  has  left  his  cabin,  locked  or  unlocked, 
I  can  be  there  making  my  search." 

McKinnon  looked  down  at  her,  puzzled,  not 
by  her  proposal,  but  by  the  sheer  fact  that  she 
could  make  it.  He  began  to  feel  that  some  kin-- 
dred  and  companionable  love  for  the  casually 
adventurous  linked  them  together;  he  began  to 
realise  that,  for  all  her  sex,  she  was  not  without 
her  youthful  and  full-blooded  relish  for  the  haz 
ard  of  any  true  game  that  was  worth  its  can 
dle. 

"Suppose  Ganley  suspects  something?" 

"He  can  suspect  nothing  if  we  only  do  our 
part  of  it  in  the  right  way,"  admonished  the 
youthful  intrigante  before  him.  "He  lives  in 
daily  dread  that  you  may  receive  messages 
about  the  Locombian  uprising,  or  his  own  con- 


136    THE  MOVEMENT  IN  RETREAT 

nection  with  it.  Then  why  not  assume  that  a  de 
spatch  has  come  in,  one,  for  instance,  stating 
that  De  Brigard  and  Ulloa  have  met,  that  this 
revolution  about  which  you  understand  so  lit 
tle  has  actually  begun  1  You  have  no  suspicion 
as  to  who  these  men  really  are.  It  will  only  be 
natural  for  you  to  make  inquiries.  You  might 
even  be  sending  for  further  particulars.  That 
would  keep  him  in  suspense:  that  would  hold 
him  there  and  give  me  the  time  I  need!" 

"But  if  he  insisted  on  not  waiting?" 

She  stood  for  a  moment  or  two  in  deep 
thought. 

"Then  you  would  have  to  warn  me." 

"But  how?" 

Again  she  stood  gazing  at  him  with  medita 
tive  eyes. 

"Why  not  by  the  sound  of  your  spark?  You 
could  start  to  send  quickly.  I  could  hear  it 
quite  plainly  through  the  open  port-hole." 

"But  even  in  that,  again,  is  a  risk.  I  might 
be  sending  to  hold  Ganley,  and  not  to  warn 
you." 

They  stood  in  thought  for  still  another  mo 
ment  or  two.  McKinnon  was  not  altogether  un 
conscious  of  her  presence,  so  companionably 
close  to  him.  Until  that  day  he  had  faced  the 
isolation  of  the  man  who  plans  and  fights  alone. 
There  was  something  vaguely  consoling  in  the 


THE  MOVEMENT  IN  KETREAT    137 

thought  of  comradeship  so  unlocked  for  and  yet 
so  sustaining. 

"Wait,"  he  said,  as  a  sudden  thought  came 
to  him.  "I  might  send  one  word,  a  simple  word 
like  'Go.'  You  could  easily  recognize  it,  then, 
as  a  warning.  That  would  be  simple  enough, 
if  you  could  only  remember  the  Morse." 

' 'Would  it  be  hard?" 

He  tapped  out  the  dots  and  dashes  with  his 
finger-tip  on  the  rod  of  brass  from  which  the 
berth-curtains  hung.  She  listened  closely  as  he 
repeated  them.  Then  she  stooped  and  repro 
duced  the  signal  with  her  own  finger-tip  on  the 
wooden  edge  of  her  narrow  berth.  The  light 
and  alertness  of  her  inquiring  eyes  as  she  looked 
up  into  his  sent  a  quick  and  inapposite  thrill 
of  appreciation  through  McKinnon. 

"That  will  be  the  danger-signal,"  she  agreed. 
"When  I  hear  it  I'll  understand." 

But  McKinnon  was  held  back  by  a  sudden 
disturbing  thought. 

"Suppose  Ganley  himself  is  able  to  read  the 
Morse?" 

"But  don't  you  see  that  is  impossible!  He's 
shown  that  already.  He  never  would  have  come 
to  you  as  he  did  when  the  Laminian  was  leaving 
New  York  if  he  had  been  able  to  stand  on  the 
deck  and  read  your  spark  at  the  masthead,  or 
if  he  had  caught  the  sound  from  your  cabin  as 


138    THE  MOVEMENT  IN  EETREAT 

you  sent.  All  that  talk  of  his  was  only  to  blind 
you  to  his  real  end ;  it  was  only  to  find  out  if  he 
himself  had  been  found  out." 

"But  even  if  we  have  the  good  luck  to  get 
back  this  paper  he's  holding,"  began  McKin- 
non,  once  more  marvelling  at  the  quick  coher 
ence  of  her  reasoning,  "that  is  only  the  begin 
ning  of  things. ' ' 

"Yes,"  she  agreed,  dropping  her  intent  and 
troubled  eyes  before  his  steady  gaze.  ' '  But  why 
should  we  cross  our  bridges  before  we  come  to 
them?" 

He  still  had  to  confess  to  himself  that  there 
was  something  almost  enigmatic  in  that  persist 
ent  yet  febrile  energy  of  hers.  It  was  so  vastly 
different  from  what  life  had  taught  him  to  ex 
pect  from  women  whom,  the  hardening  years  had 
not  touched  with  bitterness  and  left  old  and 
wise.  It  seemed  a  contradiction  of  everything 
about  her — her  youth,  her.  Aprilian  softness,  her 
obvious  honesty  of  outlook,  her  childlike  can 
dour  of  face  and  character. 

Intuitively,  as  she  stood  there  studying  his 
changing  expression,  she  caught  at  the  feeling 
that  was  still  challenging  and  bewildering  him. 

"This  is  puzzling  you — that  a  woman  can 
face  such  things  as  this?"  she  demanded,  with 
what  was  only  a;  moment's  hurried  and  unhappy 
smile.  "But  you  must  remember  that  I  have 


THE  MOVEMENT  IN  KETKEAT    139 

lived  in  the  midst  of  such  things  for  nearly  three 
years. ' ' 

"Were  they  always  this  bad?"  he  asked  her, 
with  an  answering  smile  that  nnedged  the  so 
lemnity  of  the  question. 

"No,"  she  replied;  "but  all  the  while  I  was 
in  Guariqui  I  breathed  nothing  but  an  atmos 
phere  of  intrigue  and  counter-intrigue.  It  was 
the  same  with  my  brother  Arturo,  ever  since  he 
went  south  to  fight  for  father's  claims.  We 
talked  and  worked  together  often  in  Guariqui. 
It  must  have  crept  into  my  blood  in  some  way, 
for  even  when  I  was  away  from  it,  even  when 
I  was  safe  and  happy  in  New  York,  I  wasn't 
altogether  sorry  when  a  Locombian  planter's 
son,  studying  in  the  School  of  Mines  there,  came 
and  gave  me  the  first  inkling  of  what  was  going 
on.  I  believe  I  was  almost  glad  when  I  found 
Arturo  needed  me  again,  and  needed  me  so  bad 
ly.  It  appealed  to  something  dominant  in  me; 
it  made  idling  s'eem  so  empty  and  foolish.  Then 
I  found  it  was  more  than  an  escapade,  a  game 
—that  it  was  a  peril,  and  I  couldn't  stand  off.  I 
couldn't  hold  myself  away  from  it  a  moment 
longer." 

He  moved  his  head  slowly  up  and  down  as 
a  sign  of  comprehension.  His  sympathy  brought 
the  fleetest  shadow  of  a  smile  to  her  still  trou 
bled  lips. 


140    THE  MOVEMENT  IN  RETREAT 

"  It 's  not  that  I  like  it, ' '  she  said.  "  It 's  more 
that  I  can't  bear  to  see  anything  that's  near  to 
me  suffer  undeservedly.  I  hate  the  thought  of 
Arturo  being  dealt  with  so  unfairly.  It — it— 
Oh,  I  think  it  must  be  because  my  own  father 
was  a  soldier  himself!" 

"I  rather  imagine  I  know  the  feeling,"  Mc- 
Kinnon  told  her.  ' '  I  think  I  Ve  carried  the  same 
fighting  madness  in  my  own  blood  for  quite  a 
number  of  years." 

"But  you're  a  man,  and  you're  still  young," 
she  murmured,  looking  up  at  him  a  little  sor 
rowfully,  wondering  at  the  touch  of  bitterness 
that  had  crept  into  his  voice.  "You  do  it  from 
choice;  I  must  do  it  from  necessity.  You  can 
glory  in  it — it's  unselfishness  with  you;  it's  the 
spirit  of  adventure.  With  me  it's  only  selfish 
ness — it's  only  fighting  for  my  own." 

"But  isn't  that  enough?"  asked  McKinnon 
comprehend ingly  as  he  took  her  hand  and 
turned  away  toward*  the  door. 

He  could  imagine  nothing  less  militant  and 
predaceous  than  that  soft  and  birdlike  warmth 
which  lay  for  a  moment  between  his  fingers. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE   BULL-BAITERS 

waited  until  lie  knew  Captain 
Yandel  had  turned  in  from  the  bridge.  Seven 
bells  of  the  first  watch  had  already  sounded 
mournfully  out  of  the  gloom  qf  the  dipping  fore 
castle,  and  to  wait  longer  would  only  add  to 
the  danger  of  the  enterprise  in  hand.  The  wind 
had  somewhat  lessened,  so  that  the  seas  on  the 
Laminian's  quarter  were  less  thunderous  than 
during  the  day,  and  comparative  quietness 
reigned  on  the  ship's  upper  deck. 

McKinnon,  as  he  stepped  out  and  glanced  to 
wards  the  bridge,  felt  that  this  quietness  was  not 
without  its  touch  of  the  ominous.  Yet  he  quick 
ly  hooked  back  the  cabin  door  and  adjusted  his 
helmetlike  receiver.  Then  he  deliberately 
pushed  the  call-button  that  summoned  a  steward 
from  below.  This  done,  he  turned  back  to  his 
operating-table,  drew  up  his  form-pad,  and 
wrote  a  sentence  or  two  on  it,  studiously  knit 
ting  his  brows  as  he  decided  on  the  name  and 

141 


142  THE  BULL-BAITERS 

distances  of  the  sending  ship.  Then  the  pencil 
once  more  flew  over  the  form-pad.  He  did  not 
look  up  until  he  heard  the  steward's  repeated 
knock  on  his  door-frame. 

"Tell  the  passenger  in  stateroom  eleven  to 
come  to  the  wireless-room, ' '  he  requested.  ' l  Get 
him  here  quick,  for  it's  important." 

Even  before  the  sleepy-eyed  steward  had 
turned  away  the  operator  had  his  'phones  once 
more  over  his  ears.  Then  his  eyes  travelled  to 
the  watch  lying  on  the  table  before  him,  and  an 
increasing  spirit  of  uneasiness  both  concealed 
and  revealed  itself  in  the  studied  and  deliberate 
slowness  of  his  movements  as  the  minutes 
dragged  away. 

It  was  not  until  he  caught  the  sound  of  ap 
proaching  steps  that  he  reached  languidly  out 
and  swung  down  his  switch-lever.  He  stood, 
then,  in  an  attitude  of  studied  preoccupation, 
waiting  to  send  the  "splash"  of  his  blue-flamed 
spark  out  into  the  night.  Yet  the  one  sound 
that  came  to  his  anxious  ears  was  that  of  slip 
pered  feet  shuffling  nearer  and  nearer  to  him 
along  the  deck.  It  was  not  a  hurrying  sound. 
There  was  no  touch  of  anxiety  or  eagerness  in 
the  heavy  and  methodic  tread,  even  as  it  en 
tered  his  very  cabin.  Yet  McKinnon  knew,  be 
fore  he  so  much  as  looked  up  at  the  intruder, 
that  it  was  Ganley  who  had  come  in  answer  to 


THE  BULL-BAITERS  143 

his  call.  And  he  had  to  restrain  a  smile  at  the 
thought  of  how  identical  were  the  tactics  adopt 
ed  by  both  .his  enemy  and  himself. 

"Well?"  demanded  the  non-committal  and 
titanlike  figure  as  McKinnon  worked  his  key  for 
a  preoccupied  moment  or  two,  switched  off,  and 
once  more  took  up  his  earphones. 

It  was  at  least  a  minute  before  the  operator 
deigned  to  look  about.  When  he  did  turn,  his 
first  movement  was  a  peremptory  sign  for  his 
visitor  to  close  the  cabin  door.  Yet  before  the 
man  with  the  'phones  had  once  more  turned 
about  to  his  key  and  closed  communication  with 
a  studiously  weak-powered  "Good-night,"  he 
had  made  careful  note  of  the  intruder's  figure. 
It  suggested,  as  he  had  hoped,  that  of  a  sleeper 
turned  unexpectedly  out  of  his  berth. 

Ganley  was  still  in  his  pajamas  of  braided 
Chinese  silk.  Over  these  he  had  thrown  his 
great  black  raincoat.  This  he  held  together  at 
the  waist  in  an  attitude  incongruously  feminine, 
though  the  operator  could  still  see  the  fat,  dead- 
white  flesh  where  the  sleeping-jacket  stood  apart 
beneath  the  pendulous  and  weather-darkened 
throat.  There  seemed  something  gigantically 
and  incongruously  Columbinelike,  something 
shaming  and  over-intimate  and  repulsive  in 
the  waiting  figure  and  its  accidental  exposure 
of  dead-white  flesh. 


144  THE  BULL-BAITERS 

"Well?"  the  titanlike  visitor  draped  in  black 
once  more  demanded.  He  seemed  to  show  no 
undue  haste,  no  exceptional  interest  as  he  stood 
there  with  his  great  shoulders  hunched  impas 
sively  up.  Between  his  fingers,  strangely 
enough,  he  held  one  of  his  thick-bellied,  short 
Hondurian  cigars,  as  yet  unlighted.  He  made 
a  picture  of  guarded  and  judicial  unconcern,  a 
picture  so  complete  thai  McKinnon  stopped  for 
a  moment  to  admire  it  in  secret.  And  every 
second  that  passed  was  a  second  gained.  But 
the  limit  of  delay  had  already  been  reached. 

"You  said  you  wanted  to  look  over  anything 
special  that  came  in,"  began  the  operator,  lay 
ing  down  his  'phones. 

The  Columbinelike  giant  in  pajamas  nodded 
his  head. 

"I've  got  news,  big  news,"  McKinnon  con 
fessed.  "Yet  it's  not  exactly  about  Ganley." 

He  could  see  the  other  man's  eye-flash  of  im 
patience,  but  still  the  attitude  of  wary  uncon 
cern  was  not  relaxed. 

"Well?"  was  all  Ganley  ventured. 

The  man  at  the  table,  as  he  tore  the  written 
sheet  from  his  form-pad,  knew  that  he  was  be 
ing  closely  and  keenly  watched.  This  prompted 
him  to  toy  with  the  situation  for  another  mo 
ment  or  two,  for  he  had  his  own  watching  to 
do. 


THE  BULL-BAITERS  145 

"Do  yon  know  anything  about  this  Locom- 
bian  mixup?"  was  McKinnon's  casual  question 
as  he  peered  momentarily  down  at  the  sheet  in 
his  hand. 

"Not  a  whole  lot,"  guardedly  answered  the 
man  in  the  raincoat.  "And  wliat's  more,  I 
don't  want  to.  They're  all  the  same,  those  trop 
ical  revolutions;  the  same  fireworks,  the  same 
brass  bands,  the  same  bad  ammunition  and  gold 
braid  and  bombast,  and  the  same  eternal  coun- 
tryful  of  starving  peons!" 

McKinuon,  watching  him  covertly  and  close 
ly,  was  a  little  disappointed  at  his  enemy's  apa 
thy.  The  red-rimmed  eyes  seemed  to  grow  no 
more  alert  or  alarmed,  the  heavy  lips  continued 
to  chew  the  end  of  the  unlighted  and  thick- 
waisted  cigar.  Yet  time  was  slipping  away  min 
ute  by  minute. 

"I  seem  to  have  picked  up  pretty  bad  news 
from  down  there,"  began  the  operator,  waving 
his  message-sheet. 

"You  mean  bad  news  for  me?"  mildly  in 
quired  the  other,  with  a  languid  uplift  of  his 
shaggy,  iron-grey  eyebrows.  The  two  men 
looked  directly  at  each  other  for  a  silent  mo 
ment  or  two.  McKinnon  had  a  twofold  end  in 
view,  and  his  line  of  advance  was  not  an  easy 
one. 


146  THE  BULL-BAITERS 

"There's  been  hard  fighting  in  Locombia,"  he 
slowly  asserted. 

Again  the  pajama-clad  figure  merely  nodded. 

"I've  picked  up  a  Savannah  liner  bound 
north ;  she  relays  the  news  from  an  Atlas  fruit 
er.  They've  got  this  revolution  of  Ganley's  in 
full  swing." 

The  speaker  did  not  allow  his  eyes  to  stray 
from  the  other's  face.  Yet  he  could  still  de 
tect  no  unusual  betrayal  of  concern.  Beyond 
the  spasmodic  and  habitual  working  of  the 
heavy  iron-grey  eyebrows,  the  huddled  hulk  of  a 
body  in  the  steamer-chair  made  no  movement 
that  could  be  interpreted  as  a  sign  of  surprise. 

"They  report  that  the  revolutionary  forces 
under  De  Brigard  met  the  government  forces 
under  Ulloa  on  Tuesday." 

"Where!"  asked  the  other,  casually  enough. 

"It  was  twenty  miles  southwest  of  Puerto 
Locombia;  De  Brigard  was  convoying  eight 
mountain-guns  up  towards  Guariqui." 

McKinnon  stopped  and  waited.  The  other 
man  slowly  took  his  cigar  from  his  lips  and 
looked  at  the  tattered  end.  Any  current  of  emo 
tion  that  may  have  been  awakened  in  him  re 
mained  shrouded  and  subterranean.  Whatever 
he  might  be,  concluded  McKinnon,  he  was  at 
least  a  consummate  actor. 

"Well?"  the  stolid  and  guarded  figure  de- 


THE  BULL-BAITERS  147 

manded;  and  that  was  his  only  comment.  Mc- 
Kinnon  bent  over  as  though  to  consult  the  mes 
sage-sheet. 

"They  report  that  De  Brigard  has  pounded 
his  way  through  the  Locombian  lines  and  occu 
pied  Itzula." 

The  other  man  sat  down,  with  a  scarcely  audi 
ble  sigh,  in  the  broken  deck-chair  beside  him. 
There  was  an  appreciable  space  of  silence,  un 
broken  except  for  the  breathing  of  the  two  mo 
tionless  figures. 

" Itzula!"  at  last  purred  the  black-coated 
man,  as  though  uncertain  of  the  name.  Then 
he  peered  down  at  his  slippered  toes  for  several 
meditative  seconds,  slowly  stretching  the  gross 
legs  clad  in  Chinese  silk.  McKinnon  knew  he 
was  digesting  his  victory,  but  only  to  the  in 
itiated  could  the  movement  have  been  interpret 
ed  as  the  very  core  and  essence  of  any  such 
luxurious  mental  easement.  Then  he  looked  up 
and  repeated  the  word  "Itzula?" 

Before  McKinnon  could  realise  it  he  was  on 
his  feet. 

"One  moment,"  he  called  back  as  he  crossed 
the  room. 

McKinnon  caught  up  a  message-sheet  and  in 
tercepted  his  enemy  at  the  door. 

"I  want  you  to  see  this  dispatch,"  he  said, 
catching  at  the  other's  arm  and  talking  against 


148  THE  BULL-BAITERS 

time.  "I  want  you  to  understand  what  this 
'Three-four-five-two — six  Refunfuno'  means. 
You'll  see  it  here  in  the  A  B  C  Telegraph  Code. 
It  means  'Revolution  broken  out  here.'  I 
want  you  to  see  it  for  yourself.  Then  you'll 
know " 

"I'm  taking  your  word  for  it,  young  man," 
retorted  the  other  as  he  shook  his  arm  free  and 
started  through  the  door.  McKinnon  knew  it 
would  be  madness  to  try  to  hold  him  by  force. 

"What's  up,  anyway!"  he  asked  instead,  fol 
lowing  the  other  out  on  the  deck. 

"I've  got  a  map  of  that  country  down  in  my 
cabin,"  answered  the  huge  figure  in  the  Chi 
nese  silk. 

"But  we  don't  need  your  map!"  persisted 
McKinnon. 

"I  guess  we  may  as  well  find  out  where 
they're  having  all  that  fun  we've  had  to  miss," 
called  back  the  other  from  the  stair-head.  And 
he  was  gone  before  McKinnon  could  get  to  his 
side. 

The  operator  knew  only  too  well  what  the 
man's  return  to  his  cabin  meant  at  such  a  mo 
ment.  He  did  not  take  time  to  determine  in  his 
own  mind  the  cause  of  that  return,  whether  his 
enemy  had  suddenly  remembered  his  unlocked 
door  and  his  unguarded  papers,  or  whether 


THE  BULL-BAITERS  149 

something  had  cropped  up  to  arouse  his  sus 
picions. 

But  McKinnon,  without  a  moment's  loss, 
sprang  back  into  his  wireless-room  and  faced 
his  switch-lever.  He  threw  the  ebony  handle 
of  his  starting-box  down  across  the  contact-pins 
with  a  force  that  seemed  almost  to  explode  the 
dynamo  into  a  roar  of  droning  protest.  It  was 
like  the  burst  and  sound-rush  of  an  ascending 
rocket.  Then  his  hand  darted  out  to  his  key 
and  he  broke  and  closed  the  great  current,  quick 
and  strong,  sending  the  huge  blue  spark  explod 
ing  from  his  coils  until  it  cannonaded  through 
the  closed  cabin  with  a  crash  and  throb  like  the 
quickened  thunder-claps  of  a  tropical  storm. 
Madly  he  repeated  the  call,  again  and  again, 
wondering,  as  he  feverishly  worked  the  key  in 
that  one  brief  word  of  warning,  if  he  had  been 
too  late ;  praying,  as  the  moments  dragged  away 
and  nothing  broke  the  midnight  quietness  about 
him,  that  the  girl  in  the  cabin  below  had  heard 
and  understood  his  warning. 

He  suddenly  began  to  reprove  himself  as  he 
stood  there  counting  off  the  seconds,  and  listen 
ing  to  the  interminable  muffled  throb  of  the  far- 
off  engines,  for  not  thinking  in  time,  for  not 
holding  Ganley  back,  even  though  it  had  to  be 
by  force.  Or  he  might  have  done  it,  he  felt, 
by  the  mere  pretense  of  some  fresh  message 


150  THE  BULL-BAITERS 

coming  in.  He  might  have  kept  him  there  for 
another  precious  five  minutes  if  he  had  only 
acted  as  a  man  in  his  place  ought  to  have  acted. 
But  he  had  missed  his  chance. 

He  crossed  to  his  open  door  and  paused  there 
to  listen.  He  knew  that  by  this  time  Ganley 
was  in  his  cabin,  and  that,  unless  Alicia  Boyn- 
ton  had  caught  the  warning  signal,  she  had  al 
ready  been  trapped.  This  gross,  malevolent,  red- 
handed  enemy  of  whom  she  stood  in  such  fear 
must  already  have  confronted  and  caught  her. 
The  mere  thought  of  it  was  too  much  for  him. 

McKinnon  started  back  to  his  cabin,  remem 
bering  he  was  unarmed,  thinking  of  the  revolver 
that  still  lay  in  his  trunk. 

But  something  in  the  quietness  of  the  mid 
night  ship  filled  him  with  some  sudden  keener 
sense  of  impending  disaster.  Without  the  loss 
of  another  second's  time  he  turned  and  darted 
below  decks. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE  RECOVERED  GROUND 

IT  took  McKinnon  but  half  a  minute  to  reach 
the  passageway  that  led  to  Ganley's  cabin.  He 
felt,  as  he  paused  for  an  instant  before  his  en 
emy's  closed  door,  that  his  entrance  into  the 
room  before  him  involved  a  final  and  unequivo 
cal  betrayal  of  his  own  position.  His  line  of 
advance  from  that  time  forward  could  no  lon 
ger  be  the  circuitous  and  subterranean  one  he 
had  hoped  to  make  it.  The  contest  between  him 
and  Ganley,  thereafter,  would  have  to  be  open 
and  aboveboard. 

Then,  preparing  himself  for  the  scene  he  was 
to  face,  he  turned  the  knob  and  swung  open  the 
door. 

The  cabin  was  empty.  The  electric  lights 
were  turned  on,  the  disordered  berth  stood  be 
fore  him,  and  Ganley's  massive  pigskin  wallet 
lay  on  the  floor.  But  the  room  was  without  an 
occupant. 

McKinnon,  now  thoroughly  alarmed,  turned 

151 


and  ran  to  the  second  door  farther  down  the 
passageway.  This  door,  he  remembered,  led 
into  the  cabin  of  Alicia' Boynton,  and  for  just  a 
second  or  two  he  hesitated  about  entering  it. 

Then  a  great  sense  of  gratitude  welled  up 
through  him,  for  as  he  stood  with  his  hand  still 
on  the  knob  the  sound  of  the  girl's  voice  came 
out  to  him.  He  had  no  time  to  resent  the  tumult 
and  poignancy  of  this  newer  feeling,  for  it  was 
the  woman's  words,  and  not  her  voice,  that  co 
erced  him  into  sudden  attention.  "How  dare 
you!"  cried  the  voice  beyond  the  closed  door. 

"How  dare  you  come  into  this  cabin!"  she 
was  crying.  McKinnon  could  hear  her  gasp  of 
what  might  have  been  either  indignation  or  in 
creasing  fright. 

"This  is  a  little  dose  of  your  own  medicine, 
young  woman!" 

It  was  Ganley  who  had  spoken.  His  voice  was 
still  low  and  unhurried.  It  seemed  almost  cas 
ual  in  its  studied  deliberateness.  Yet  it  held 
a  tremolo  of  restrained  passion  that  made  the 
deliberating  McKinnon  wait  there  for  a  min 
ute  or  two  with  his  hand  still  on  the  door-knob. 

It  was  Alicia  Boynton 's  voice  that  sounded 
out  of  the  quietness. 

"How  dare  you!"  she  gasped  again. 

"Cut  out  that  play-acting   and   stand   back 


THE  RECOVERED  GROUND        153 

against  that  wall  there!  So!  Now  hand  out 
that  stuff  of  mine — every  line  and  rag  of  it !" 

It  was  the  woman  who  spoke  next. 

"I  have  nothing  to  hand  out." 

"I'll  give  you  ten  seconds,"  protested  Gan- 
ley.  "I'll  give  you  ten  seconds  to  get  those 
papers  of  mine  into  my  hand  here,  every  shred 
of  'em!" 

"I  have  no  papers  of  yours,"  declared  the 
more  and  more  terrified  woman. 

"I'm  no  fool — I  saw  'em — I  caught  you  at 
it!" 

"Will  you  leave  my  cabin?" 

"Then  explain  what  you've  got  stuck  down 
your  waist  there  I ' ' 

"It's  nothing  of  yours." 

"Hand  it  out,  or  I'll  rip  those  clothes  off 
your  back ! ' ' 

"There's  nothing  to  hand  out." 

"Hand  it  out — or  I'll  blow  it  out!"  came  the 
low-toned  threat,  driven  home  with  an  oath. 

"I  can't,"  came  the  woman's  answer,  scarce 
ly  more  than  a  whisper. 

"Hand  it  out!" 

Then  came  a  second  or  two  of  unbroken  si 
lence. 

"You're  going  to  shoot!"  gasped  the  woman. 
It  was  only  too  evident  that  Ganley  had  stepped 
closer  to  her. 


154       THE  EECOVEEED  GROUND 

' '  No, ' '  lie  said,  his  thick  voice  shaken  a  little 
with  his  close-held  passion.  "I'm  not  going  to 
shoot.  But  I'm  going  to  pound  your  lying  head 
in  with  this  gun-grip — I'm  going  to  pound  you 
till  your  own  mother  wouldn  't  know  you ! ' ' 

The  woman  uttered  a  little  cry,  not  shrill 
enough  to  be  a  scream,  not  low  enough  to  be 
called  a  moan.  It  was  then  that  the  waiting 
McKinnon  swung  open  the  door  and  sprang  into 
the  room. 

He  was  barely  in  time  to  behold  the  infuri 
ated  Ganley,  with  his  heavy  black-handled  Colt 
revolver  held  by  its  barrel,  charge  on  the  girl, 
who  stood  with  her  back  against  the  cabin  wall. 
He  was  not  in  time  to  prevent  the  blow  that  fell 
on  the  girl's  out-thrust  forearm,  as  blindly  and 
instinctively  she  threw  it  up  to  guard  her  head. 
But  as  the  clubbing  gun-butt  raised  for  its  sec 
ond  frenzied  blow  the  intruder  sprang.  As  he 
sprang  he  caught  the  swinging  revolver  in  his 
hand.  One  quick  movement,  one  twist  of  the 
levering  grip,  wrenched  it  free.  The  next  mo 
ment  McKinnon 's  fingers  were  clamped  on  Gan 
ley 's  fat  and  pendulous  throat  and  he  had  the 
man  in  the  black  raincoat  thrust  flat  back 
against  the  berth-edge,  gasping  for  breath,  paw 
ing  the  air  with  his  thick,  fat  hands. 

"You  hound,  to  treat  a  woman  like  that!" 
was  all  the  overwrought  McKinnon  could  say. 


THE  EECOVEEED  GEOUND        155 

"Let  me  breathe,  you  fool!"  gasped  Ganley. 
"Let  me  breathe!" 

"You  hound!"  repeated  McKinnon,  thrown 
into  a  primitive  and  unreasoning  passion  of  re 
volt  against  the  brutality  of  the  scene. 

"I  caught  the  she-cat — I  caught  her  red-hand 
ed — I  caught  her  coming  through  my  door!" 
cried  Ganley,  getting  his  breath  again. 

"Are  you  hurt?"  the  operator  demanded  of 
the  woman  still  motionless  against  the  wall. 

"No,"  she  answered. 

' l  Then  I  '11  settle  this  with  the  gentleman  my 
self,  in  his  own  cabin,  or  in  the  captain's,  if  he 
prefers." 

But  Ganley  was  on  his  feet  at  once. 

"Nobody's  going  to  leave  this  room,"  he  de 
clared  with  a  gavel-like  thud  of  an  oath.  "That 
woman's  lifted  documents  o'  mine  that  aren't 
going  to  get  out  o'  this  cabin." 

McKinnon 's  less  primordial  instincts  were 
slowly  reasserting  themselves.  He  looked  from 
the  one  figure  to  the  other,  as  though  mystified 
by  the  case,  as  though  uncertain  of  the  charges 
being  bandied  back  and  forth. 

"Who  is  this  woman?"  he  demanded  of  Gan 
ley  with  a  sudden  assumption  of  uncertainty. 

".Who  is  she!"  cried  the  exasperated  Gan 
ley.  "I  know  who  she  Js, _ and  she  knows  I 
knowl" 


156       THE  RECOVERED  GROUND 

"Have  you  anything  of  this  man's?"  McKin- 
non  deliberately  demanded  of  the  girl,  reali 
sing  that  his  intrusion  had  not  yet  amounted  to  a 
complete  betrayal  of  his  own  position. 

The  upturned  gaze  of  the  girl  against  the 
wall  and  that  of  the  wireless  operator  met.  Gan- 
ley  moved  closer  to  the  door,  as  though  to  guard 
it.  No  one  spoke  until  McKinnon  repeated  the 
question. 

"Yes,"  said  the  panting  and  puzzled  woman, 
"I  have  something  of  his." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  the  operator. 

"A  slip  of  paper." 

"Where  is  it!" 

"I  have  it,"  was  all  the  girl  answered. 

"Then  hand  it  out  to  me,"  ordered  Ganley. 

Her  eyes  were  still  on  McKinnon 's  as  her 
hand  went  to  her  breast. 

"No,  hand  it  to  me/'  interposed  McKinnon 
as  he  watched  the  slowly  withdrawn  hand  that 
held  a  crumpled  sheet  of  white  paper.  The 
wide,  troubled  eyes  of  the  girl  turned  from  one 
man  to  the  other.  Then  she  opened  the  slip  of 
paper  and  glanced  down  at  it.  Ganley 's  hand 
went  out  for  it  authoritatively.  The  look  in 
McKinnon 's  eyes  was  equally  imperative. 

It  was  then  that  the  girl  fell  back  a  step  or 
two  along  the  cabin  wall.  She  held  the  paper 
between  her  hands,  as  she  did  so.  Tbe.r\,  with  a 


THE  EECOVERED  GROUND       157 

quick  movement  of  her  trembling  fingers,  and 
before  either  of  the  men  could  stop  her,  she  tore 
the  sheet  in  two,  again  and  again. 

•Til  kill  you  for  that!"  choked  Ganley,  his 
face  contorted  like  a  wrestler's,  shaking  and 
twitching,  but  not  moving  from  where  he  stood. 

McKinnon,  with  the  revolver  still  in  his  hand, 
stepped  between  them. 

"There's  been  enough  of  this  prize-ring 
work,"  he  cried  as  he  faced  Ganley.  "I  want 
to  know  what  all  this  means." 

"It  means  I'm  going  to  get  that  woman," 
panted  the  other  man,  his  face  still  grayish  pur 
ple  with  rage. 

"How  get  her!" 

"Get  her  in  irons,  where  she  belongs." 

"I  stole  nothing,"  interrupted  the  white-faced 
girl. 

A  stab  of  inapposite  remorse  went  through 
McKinnon  as  he  remembered  that  he  himself 
was  the  cause  of  this  last  and  unlovely  scene. 

"She  lies!"  Ganley  was  saying. 

"Hold  on  there!"  said  McKinnon,  getting  a 
firmer  and  firmer  grasp  on  both  himself  and  the 
situation.  "I  came  into  this  cabin  and  found 
you  beating  a  girl  over  the  head.  Say  what 
you've  got  to  say  about  it.  Then  the  girl  can 
say  what  she  has  to  say." 

Ganley  stared  at  Ms  self-appointed  judge. 


158       THE  EECOVERED  GKOUND 

"Are  you  the  master  of  this  ship?"  he  de 
manded. 

''I'm  the  master  of  this  situation,"  calmly 
replied  the  wireless  operator  with  a  pregnant 
upthrust  of  the  revolver  which  he  still  held  in 
his  hand.  "And  before  our  little  party  breaks 
up  I  'm  going  to  understand  what  it  means. ' ' 

"Then  ask  this  woman  what  she  stole  from 
me." 

McKinnon  had  to  feel  and  test  his  way  as  he 
went,  like  a  man  on  thin  ice. 

"You  mean  for  the  woman  to  speak  first?" 

"Yes,"  retorted  Ganley;  "and  she's  going  to 
do  more  than  speak." 

McKinnon  turned  to  the  woman,  who  stood 
still  staring  at  him  in  unbroken  and  puzzled  si 
lence. 

"Well?  "he  said  at  last. 

"What  must  I  explain?"  she  finally  asked, 
still  studying  his  face. 

"What  you  carried  out  of  my  cabin,"  an 
swered  Ganley. 

"You  want  me  to  explain  that?"  she  asked, 
her  eyes  on  the  younger  man's  face. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  operator. 

"Must  I  tell  you?"  still  parried  the  perplexed 
woman. 

"You  must,"  McKinnon  replied. 

"It  was  the  contract  made  between  this  man 


THE  RECOVERED  GROUND        159 

and  the  wireless  operator  of  this  ship, ' '  she  de 
liberately  answered. 

' ;  A  contract  I ' '  said  McKinnon. 

"It  was  the  agreement  you  signed  to  become 
a  partner  of  this  man." 

"And  you  tore  this  agreement  up?"  demand 
ed  McKinnon  with  an  assumption  of  incredibil 
ity.  He  waited  for  her  glance  of  intelligence 
to  show  him  that  she  had  caught  some  vague 
inkling  of  his  position,  of  the  attitude  of  armed 
neutrality  he  was  struggling  to  retain  in  that 
strange  tangle  of  interests ;  but  she  did  not  seem 
to  understand. 

"You  saw  me  tear  it  up,"  she  replied,  won 
dering  in  turn  just  what  was  expected  of  her, 
anxious  not  to  endanger  him  by  any  foolish  mis 
step  on  her  part. 

''Why?"  asked  McKinnon. 

"I  could  not  see  any  one  tied  to  a  man  whose 
hands  are  stained  with  blood." 

Ganley  laughed  a  heavy  and  mirthless  laugh, 
as  though  resenting  the  theatricality  of  the 
woman's  phrase. 

"That's  a  hell  of  a  reason!"  he  mumbled  in 
his  sullen  guttural. 

"I  did  it  because  I  know  what  this  man  is," 
went  on  the  woman,  turning  her  slow  and  puz 
zled  stare  from  the  operator  to  Ganley. 

McKinnon,  now  in  perfect  control  of  himself, 


160       THE  EECOVEEED  GROUND 

wheeled  about  to  the  Columbinelike  figure  in  the 
black  raincoat  and  the  Chinese  silk  pajamas. 

"  You  are  Eichard  Duffy,  acting  with  the  Con 
solidated  Fruit  Concern  and  the  authorities  at 
Washington  for  the  capture  of  a  man  named 
Ganley,  are  you  not?" 

"I  am,"  answered  the  man  in  the  raincoat, 
doggedly  facing  the  young  woman.  McKinnon 
could  see  her  lip  pucker  up  with  its  little  curl 
of  unspeakable  scorn. 

1 '  The  man  lies ! ' '  said  the  girl  in  her  calm  and 
deliberate  tones.  "This  man  is  Ganley,  'King 
maker  Ganley,'  himself!" 

The  man  in  the  raincoat  once  more  laughed 
his  sullenly  derisive  laugh.  His  contemptuous 
defiance  seemed  to  nettle  and  anger  the  woman 
into  more  coherent  thought.  When  she  spoke 
next  she  uttered  her  words  more  incisively,  more 
quickly. 

"This  man,"  and  her  scorn  was  infinite,  "is 
the  buzzard  of  the  tropics,  the  creature  who 
waits  and  watches  over  sick  republics,  who 
prowls  about  after  dying  governments  to  pick 
their  bones!" 

"You're  crazy!"  scoffed  the  man  she  was  ac 
cusing. 

"He's  called  'Kaiser  Ganley,'  the  gun-run 
ner,  '  Pasha  Ganley, '  the  agent  of  every  Central 
American  patriot,"  she  continued.  "He's 


THE  RECOVERED  GROUND       161 

fighter  who  never  comes  to  do  his  own  fighting. 
He 's  the  man  who  sucks  his  living  out  of  a  blind 
ed  and  ignorant  people's  gun- wounds." 

"She  lies!"  declared  Ganley,  blinking  up  at 
McKinnon  indifferently,  as  though  to  note  the 
effect  of  her  words  on  him. 

"He  drugs  these  simple-minded  people  with 
war  talk  and  blinds  them  with  the  glitter  of  a 
little  gilt  braid,"  went  on  the  woman,  with  in 
creasing  bitterness.  "Then  he  turns  and  robs 
them.  And  there  he  is,  the  colleague,  the  inti- 
mado  you  have  found,  the  man  who  made  a  tool 
of  Juan  Parra  and  murdered  him  or  had  him 
murdered  in  the  swamps  of  the  Magdalena,  the 
man  who  was  given  twelve  hours  to  make  his 
way  out  of  Brazil,  the  man  that  even  Zelaya 
refused  to  stand  by.  He  is  the  upholder  of  the 
weak  who  shipped  twenty-five  thousand  rounds 
of  ammunition  into  Locombia,  embedded  in  lard, 
and  twenty-eight  hundred  carbines  crated  and 
invoiced  as  laundry  equipment,  and  nine  cases 
of  dynamite  that  went  out  of  Mobile  as  land  fer 
tiliser  for  the  Costa  Rican  coffee  plantations." 

The  man  in  the  raincoat,  who  had  been  squat 
ting  contemptuously  on  the  berth-edge,  swung 
forward  to  his  feet  at  this.  His  many-lined, 
heavy,  red  face  had  lost  its  colour  until  it  re 
mained  only  a  faded  brick-dust  tint. 

"You  see!"  cried  the  woman  more  tumultu- 


162       THE  EECOVEEED  GEOUND 

ously.  "He  even  confesses  it  is  true.  It  sur 
prises  him  that  I  should  know  so  much.  But 
there  are  other  things  I  know.  I  know  that  he 
was  the  instigator  of  the  Orinoco  Colonisation 
frauds.  I  know  he  was  once  a  Cuban  blockade- 
runner,  and  once  an  agent  of  Don  Carlos,  the 
Spanish  pretender.  I  know  that  he  was  a  gun 
smuggler  into  the  Balkans  at  the  same  time  that 
he  was  being  made  a  pasha  by  his  friend,  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey." 

She  paused  for  breath  and  pointed  mocking 
ly  at  her  enemy's  short,  thick  fingers  as  they 
slowly  clenched  and  unclenched. 

"Look  at  his  hands  and  you  will  see !  He  went 
to  Lhassa  in  the  pay  of  a  Eussian  secret  agent. 
And  they  caught  him  and  crucified  him  on  one 
of  their  convent  walls — they  nailed  him  there 
through  the  hands.  You  can  see  the  marks! 
He  can't  lie  those  away,  for  he  hung  there 
twelve  hours  until  a  tribesman  set  him  free  and 
spirited  him  across  the  frontier.  And  this  is 
the  great  soldier  who  gave  you  money " 

Ganley  once  more  broke  in  on  her  as  she 
stopped  to  pant  for  breath. 

"These  are  a  pack  o'  lies!"  he  cried,  and  his 
voice  was  rasping  and  forced,  as  though  it  re 
quired  a  great  effort  for  him  to  utter  the  words, 
"These  are  all  damned  lies!" 


THE  RECOVERED  GROUND       163 

The  woman  pointed  to  the  little  particles  of 
white  paper  scattered  about  the  floor. 

"And  that  was  not  an  agreement  with  this 
man?"  she  derisively  asked. 

"This  man  made  an  agreement  with  me,  an 
open  and  honest  agreement." 

"Honest!"  interpolated  the  scornful  woman. 

"And  he  had  the  right  of  saying  yes  or  no 
to  it.  He's  past  the  age  of  being  wet-nursed 
into  what  he  wants  to  do." 

"Then  he  had  the  right  to  know  what  he  was 
tied  up  with,"  parried  the  scoffing  woman. 

"He  still  has  the  right  of  saying  yes  or  no 
to  that  agreement,"  declared  Ganley  as  he 
brought  his  great,  russet-coloured  hand  down 
on  the  berth-edge  with  a  sudden  blow.  "But 
what's  he  to  you,  anyway?" 

She  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  the  two 
men  before  her.  But  McKinnon  gave  her  no 
chance  to  reply.  The  moment  he  had  been  wait 
ing  for  had  already  arrived. 

"I've  had  enough  of  this,"  he  said  as  he  held 
his  hand  out  towards  the  sullen-faced  Ganley. 
In  this  outstretched  hand  was  a  roll  of  bills  held 
together  by  a  rubber  band. 

"What's  this?" 

"It's  your  money!"  said  McKinnon. 

"I  won't  take  it!"  retorted  the  other. 

"You  won't  take  it?" 


164       THE  RECOVERED  GROUND 

"Not  until  you  show  me  a  reason  why  we 
should  split. ' '  He  jerked  a  contemptuous  thumb 
towards  the  staring  woman.  "  And  I  don't  call 
that  a  reason!" 

"The  whole  thing's  too  tangled  up  for  me," 
equivocated  the  operator. 

"There's  no  tangle  when  it's  pared  down  to 
the  truth." 

"But  we  can't  argue  about  that  all  night,  and 
I've  got  my  key  to  attend  to,"  complained  the 
watchful  McKinnon. 

A  new  look  of  anxiety  flashed  across  the  other 
man's  face  at  the  mention  of  the  key.  It  was  a 
flash,  and  nothing  more. 

"Then  you  believe  what  she  says?"  asked 
Ganley  more  soberly,  looking  from  the  paper- 
littered  floor  to  the  woman  still  standing  mo 
tionless  against  the  cabin  wall. 

"You  haven't  disproved  it,"  said  the  opera 
tor  with  a  gesture  of  simulated  bewilderment. 

"I'm  proving  and  disproving  nothing,"  was 
Ganley 's  reply.  *  *  I  haven 't  been  doing  the  talk 
ing.  I'm  not  the  talking  kind.  But  I've  come 
into  touch  with  this  kind  o'  woman  before.  I 
know  her,  and  she  and  her  whole  gang  can't 
hoodwink  me!" 

"Well?"  said  McKinnon  a  little  impatiently. 

"Oh,  I've  known  her  ever  since  she  hitched 


THE  RECOVERED  GROUND       165 

• 

up  with  that  crooked  little  concession  hunter 
called  Boynton." 

"Stop!"  cried  the  girl. 

"For  three  years  now  she's  been  a  feeder  for 
that  one-lunged  climber,  that  Yankee  renegade 
who's  been  trying  to  pose  as  a  Spaniard. 
They're  the  team  who  went  down  yonder  with  a 
cooked  up  claim  on  the  Cornruche  Rubber 
Treaty  territory." 

"Stop!"  cried  the  indignant  girl,  more 
shrilly.  The  scene  in  some  way  reminded  Mc- 
Kinnon  of  a  meeting  between  a  cat  and  a  mas 
tiff.  More  and  more  he  grew  to  resent  the  fact 
that  this  fragile  and  isolated  figure  should  be 
dragged  through  such  demeaning  mires  of 
scurrility.  But  Ganley  was  not  to  be  stopped. 

"And  when  they'd  wrung  their  money  out  of 
that,"  he  declared,  "they  dished  up  a  Locom- 
bian  nitrate  claim  and  drained  that  dry.  And 
when  that  was  picked  clean  they  wheedled  their 
way  into  Duran's  good  graces.  And  then,  to 
cinch  her  graft,  this  woman,  this  pink-and- white 
beauty  right  here  before  you,  married  a  Santo 
Domingan  half-caste  filibuster  who'd  made  a 
half  million  out  of  brandy  smuggling  and  coun 
terfeiting  ! ' ' 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR 

A  WAVE  of  something  that  was  vaguely  dis 
heartening,  that  was  almost  nauseating,  swept 
through  McKinnon.  It  left  him  momentarily 
dazed,  as  men  are  dazed  with  that  forlornest 
sickness  which  follows  a  seismic  upheaval.  He 
felt  as  though  the  deck  under  his  feet  had 
opened  and  let  him  down  into  the  depths  of  a 
chilling  sea.  Insidiously  and  almost  unwitting 
ly  he  had  grown  to  believe  that  this  unbefriend- 
ed  and  lonely  woman  was  in  some  way  very 
close  to  him.  Little  by  little  he  had  come  to 
accept  the  hope  that  they  might  draw  even  closer 
together,  that  the  exigencies  of  warfare  might 
make  their  paths  identical. 

But  as  he  stood  listening  to  Ganley's  thun 
dered  declaration  there  swept  through  him  the 
impression  of  being  engulfed  and  suffocated  in 
fogs  of  duplicity,  of  being  entangled  in  endless 
webs  of  lies  and  intrigues  and  counter-intrigues. 
He  felt  suddenly  oppressed  and  disturbed  by  a 

166 


THE  PYEEHIC  VICTOR  167 

sense  of  unlooked-for  and  undefined  conspira 
cies  beyond  conspiracies,  of  bewildering  and  in 
scrutable  forces  at  play  all  about  him. 

"Is  this  true?"  he  demanded  of  the  woman 
before  him. 

His  question  was  almost  a  prayer  for  its  own 
denial.  He  could  see  that  the  scene  through 
which  she  had  passed  had  sorely  taxed  her 
strength.  She  was  no  longer  a  girl,  but  a  wom 
an  who  had  known  and  confronted  life. 

"Is  this  true?"  he  repeated,  and  even  as  he 
asked  it  he  felt  that  whatever  part  she  might 
be  playing  in  that  crowded  drama  he  would  in 
the  end  be  compelled  to  stand  by  her. 

"No,"  whispered  the  woman,  white  to  her 
lips.  "It  is  not  true." 

"Have  you  a  husband?" 

"No,"  she  still  answered  in  her  low  voice. 
The  monosyllable  was  emotionless,  yet  he  could 
see  by  her  face  that  she  was  suffering. 

Ganley  laughed  outright.  It  was  not  a  pleas 
ant  laugh. 

"And  you  never  married  a  mangy,  half-caste 
diamond-wearing  Santo  Domingan  named  De 
Perralta?"  demanded  the  man  on  the  berth 
edge. 

"I  married  a  man  named  Perralta,"  answered 
the  woman  slowly,  her  unwavering  eyes  on  Mc- 
Kinnon  as  she  spoke. 


168  THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR 

"Then  it  is  true!"  A  note  of  involuntary 
bitterness  rang  through  McKinnon's  sharp 
query. 

"Yes,"  she  answered. 

"But  you  have  just  said  you  had  no  hus 
band!" 

"He  was  dragged  from  the  carriage  half  an 
hour  after  the  ceremony." 

"What  ceremony?" 

"After  our  marriage.  I  have  not  seen  him 
since  that  day.  Seven  weeks  later  he  died  of 
yellow  fever." 

"And  tell  why  he  was  dragged  from  that 
carriage,"  prompted  Ganley,  with  his  guttural 
and  mirthless  laugh,  as  he  saw  the  woman's 
wide  eyes  watching  him  closely,  almost  chal- 
lengingly. 

"He  had  shot  the  wife  of  a  government  offi 
cial  named  Gurmanito,  in  Bogota,"  she  an 
swered  in  her  listless  monotone.  "That  was 
only  one  of  other  things." 

"Other  things  which  made  him  almost  worthy 
of  the  family  he'd  married  into,"  interpolated 
the  scoffing  Ganley,  in  luxurious  appreciation 
of  her  misery. 

McKinnon  could  see  that  she  was  shaking, 
that  her  whole  body  was  quivering.  When  she 
spoke  again,  hurriedly,  her  voice  was  higher,  in 
pitch,  as  though  the  strain  upon  her  was  becom- 


THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR  169 

ing  a  tension  ehe  could  no  longer  control  or 
endure. 

''I  have  never  spoken  of  these  things,"  she 
said  in  her  tremulous  soprano,  facing  McKin- 
non,  "but  I  want  you  to  understand.  It  was 
three  years  ago,  when  I  was  little  more  than 
a  schoolgirl.  I  was  under  a  great  debt  of  grati 
tude  to  this  man  who — to  this  man  Perralta.  I 
had  been  left  in  care  of  the  American  Consul 
at  La  Guayra;  I  had  taken  an  English  steam 
ship  to  Venezuela,  after  two  years  in  a  French 
school.  I  was  to  re-embark  from  La  Guayra 
for  Puerto  Locombia,  but  quarantine  was  estab 
lished  on  account  of  bubonic  plague,  before  I 
could  get  away.  I  had  to  live  at  the  consulate 
on  short  rations — the  American  consul  had  re 
fused  the  demand  of  the  Venezuelan  Govern 
ment  for  a  certificate  that  La  Guayra  was  free 
of  the  plague.  He  and  his  family  were  taken 
off  by  a  United  States  gunboat,  the  PaducaK, 
and  I  would  have  been  sent  to  the  detention 
camps,  had  it  not  been  for  this  man  Perralta." 

"Go  on!"  prompted  the  other,  as  she  paused. 
"He  seemed  a  gentleman  then,  and  had 
money  and  influence.  He  played  his  part  well. 
He  leased  a  seagoing  tug  and  had  me  and  my 
companion,  a  young  German  woman,  carried 
out  of  the  infected  district.  After  we  had 
passed  the  necessary  period  of  quarantine,  for 


170  THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR 

observation,  in  the  English  hospital  at  George 
town,  he  was  there,  waiting  for  us.  I  was  weak 
and  ill — I  think  it  was  of  coast-fever.  He 
bribed  or  bought  over  the  German  woman,  I 
don't  know  how.  I  was  tricked  into  a  ceremony 
I  did  not  understand.  I  scarcely  knew  what  to 
do  when  I  found  out.  But  it  was  decided  for 
me — he  was  dragged  from  the  carriage  as  he 

sat  beside  me I  tell  you  all  this 

because — because  I  want  you  to  understand." 

"I  do  understand,"  answered  McKinnon. 

"And  is  that  all?"  asked  Ganley,  with  his 
careless  sneer. 

"Yes;  that  is  all,"  she  answered.  The  in 
solence  of  the  gross-limbed  gun-runner  was  like 
a  whip-lash  to  McKinnon. 

"And  is  that  all  on  your  side?"  he  asked, 
with  a  sudden  movement  of  disgust. 

"Not  by  a  long  shot!"  retorted  the  man  in 
the  raincoat,  with  unlooked-for  energy.  "I 
want  later  history  than  all  this.  I  want  to  know 
just  what  this  woman's  got  of  mine." 

"She  has  explained  that  she  took  this  paper," 
replied  the  other,  pointing  to  the  littered  cabin 
floor. 

"What  do  I  care  what  she  said,  or  says,  or 
is  going  to  say.  You've  got  to  show  me — I'm 
from  Missouri!" 

McKinnon  pondered  the  situation.    It  was 


THE  PYEEHIC  VICTOE  171 

plain  that  Ganley  had  regained  his  self-control, 
that  he  could  no  longer  be  counted  on  to  act  with 
the  unthinking  directness  of  the  outraged  sav 
age  he  had  seemed. 

" There's  a  very  simple  way  to  settle  this 
problem,"  McKinnon  suggested.  "We'll  lock 
this  cabin,  so  nothing  in  it  can  be  interfered 
with.  The  three  of  us  will  step  into  your  cabin. 
You'll  then  go  through  your  belongings,  these 
documents  and  papers  of  yours,  and  I'll  check 
them  off  as  you  do  so,  one  by  one.  It  will  be 
easy  enough  to  tell  then  if  anything  is  missing.'* 

The  proposal  aroused  no  enthusiasm  in 
Ganley. 

"This  is  not  the  hour  o'  night  I  care  to  go 
into  the  general-auditing  business,"  was  his 
reply. 

"Nor  altogether  the  hour  of  night  for  keep 
ing  a  young  lady  out  of  her  bed!" 

Ganley  peered  at  the  speaker  for  several 
seconds  before  replying. 

"I  like  to  see  you  being  nice  and  consider 
ate,"  he  said  at  last,  with  his  mild  and  studied 
laugh.  "And  I  imagine  you  enjoy  being  judge 
and  jury  in  a  case  like  this.  And  I  also  im 
agine,  just  because  this  woman's  flashed  her 
lamps  at  you  a  couple  o'  times,  that  you've  got 
an  idea  that  she's  all  right  and  I'm  all  wrong. 
You've  both  concluded  that  this  little  talk-fest 


172  THE  PYEEHIC  VICTOE 

has  settled  the  whole  case.  But  it  hasn't.  And 
I  guess  it's  not  going  to." 

He  rose  to  his  feet  heavily  and  slowly  and 
thoughtfully,  and  then  turned  to  McKinnon. 

"Eemember,  I'm  not  trying  to  hold  you  in 
any  way.  You're  free.  You  can  do  what  you 
like.  But  if  anything  unexpected  should  hap 
pen,  just  bear  in  mind  I  gave  you  a  chance  to 
stand  in  with  me,  and  you  wouldn't  take  it!" 

"Is  that  a  threat!"  asked  McKinnon. 

"Threats?  Why  should  I  make  threats? 
Talking 's  cheap,  and  there's  been  a  good  deal 
of  it  handed  round  here  to-night.  And,  as  you 
say,  we've  rather  tired  the  lady." 

There  was  no  longer  any  trace  of  mockery 
in  his  voice  as  he  drew  himself  up  and  spoke 
more  directly  to  the  younger  man. 

"And  now  I'm  going  to  turn  in.  But  don't 
you  forget  that  I'm  still  trying  to  be  a  friend 
o'  yours!" 

'  *  I  know  it ! "  said  the  younger  man,  meeting 
his  eyes  without  flinching. 

"Then  there's  nothing  we  need  to  worry 
about,"  declared  Ganley.  And  before  the  other 
quite  realised  it  the  man  in  the  black  raincoat, 
with  a  benevolent  and  all-forgiving  arm-wave, 
crossed  the  room  to  the  cabin  door.  No  one 
spoke  as  he  passed  out  through  it  and  closed 
it  alter  him. 


THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR  173 

It  was  the  watching  and  motionless  woman 
who  finally  emitted  a  little  gasp  in  which  anger 
seemed  to  override  astonishment.  Her  com 
panion  was  startled  by  the  look  of  bewilder 
ment,  mounting  almost  to  open  distrust,  that 
crept  slowly  over  her  face.  There  seemed  to 
be  something  akin  to  pitying  contempt  in  her 
eyes  as  she  slowly  turned  about  and  gazed  at 
him. 

"What  does  this  mean?"  she  demanded. 

"Does  what  mean?"  he  parried,  disturbed  by 
the  hostility  of  her  gaze. 

"The  way  you  have  played  into  Ganley's 
hand — the  way  you  have  sacrificed  everything 
for  your  own  safety!" 

"But  nothing  has  been  sacrificed,"  persisted 
the  unhappy  McKinnon. 

"I  have  been  sacrificed — you  have  watched 
him  humiliate  me — you  have  helped  him  to 
humiliate  me!" 

"It  was  hard  to  bear,  I  know.  But  it  could 
not  be  helped.  It's  a  part  of  the  price  we  have 
to  pay  for  our  victory.  It's  a  part  I  would 
have  borne  myself,  a  thousand  times  over,  if  I'd 
only  been  able." 

"The  price  for  what  victory?"  she  demanded. 

"The  victory  we  wanted;  the  thing  we've 
been  working  for,  all  along.  It's  settled — and 
he  doesn't  even  understand  it's  settled!" 


174  THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR 

"Yes;  it's  settled,"  she  echoed,  unhappily. 

"But  this  leaves  us  free!" 

"You  do  not  know  this  man  as  I  do,"  was 
her  answer. 

"But  it's  over — we're  through  with  him!" 

"He  is  not  through  with  us!" 

"But  what  can  he  do,  when  once  I've  got  in 
touch  with  the  Princeton?" 

She  looked  about  the  small  cabin,  from  side 
to  side,  fornlornly.  It  was  the  first  time  McKin- 
non  had  seen  actual  fear  in  her  eyes.  He  even 
felt  that  she  had  been  vaguely  weighing  the 
place's  possibilities  against  assault. 

"Are  you  afraid?"  he  asked,  not  compre 
hending  the  source  of  her  distrust.  She  shook 
her  head  in  negation. 

"This  is  an  American  ship,"  was  her  answer. 

"Then  what  is  it?"  he  asked,  oppressed  by 
some  new-born  isolation  of  spirit  that  barred 
and  walled  him  away  from  her. 

Again  that  look  of  almost  contemptuous  pity 
crept  into  her  eyes. 

"I'm  afraid  of  you,"  she  replied;  "I'm 
afraid  of  the  future,  and  how  you  will  surely 
fail." 

There  was  no  sign  of  tears  in  her  eyes,  though 
he  had  felt,  from  her  voice,  that  an  outburst  was 
imminent.  Yet  he  found  it  hard,  cruelly  hard, 
to  meet  her  open  and  unwavering  glance. 


THE  PYRRHIC  VICTOR  175 

"Why  have  you  treated  me  like  this?"  she 
asked  him,  almost  without  emotion.  * '  Have  you 
nothing  to  say,  nothing  to  explain!" 

McKinnon  did  not  answer  for  a  moment  or 
two. 

"I  can't  explain,"  he  said,  at  last,  his  face 
distorted,  under  the  strong  side-light,  with  some 
unuttered  misery  of  spirit. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

IT  was  not  until  the  Laminian  was  well  down 
off  the  coast  of  San  Salvador  that  she  rode  into 
settled  weather.  Then,  in  a  night,  she  seemed 
to  emerge  from  a  world  of  wind  and  unrest  and 
tumult  into  a  world  of  brooding  quietness.  As 
she  crept  on,  forging  ever  southward  under  the 
high-arching  azure  sky,  this  sense  of  quietness 
and  completion  grew  deeper.  The  air  became 
warm  and  soft.  The  sun  streamed  down  on  the 
patched  awnings,  on  the  worn  deck  that  seemed 
bone-white  in  the  flat,  strong  light  of  noonday. 
Through  the  ventilators,  all  day  long,  came  the 
purposeful  throb  and  beat  of  the  engines, 
muffled,  like  the  throbbing  of  a  great  heart. 
There  seemed  something  inevitable  and  ordered 
in  that  unhurried  and  undeviating  pulse,  as 
though  the  ship  and  all  she  carried  were  forever 
at  peace  with  the  world. 

A  passenger  or  two  moved  slowly  about  the 
level  decks  or  sat  listless  in  the  dark  shade  of 

176 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        177 

the  canvas,  listening  to  the  plaintive  hiss  of  the 
ship's  bow  as  it  parted  the  turquoise  sea  into 
two  widening  simitars  of  curling  foam.  Cinders 
rained  gently  down  on  the  slowly  flapping  awn 
ings,  on  the  bone-white  deck  boards  steaming 
with  sea-water  sprayed  from  a  leaking  hose  in 
a  foolish  effort  to  keep  their  cracks  from  widen 
ing,  on  the  eddying  and  milk-white  trail  behind 
the  threshing  screw.  From  somewhere  forward 
the  bells  sounded  out,  lazily,  sadly,  ghostlike, 
as  though  recording  time  in  a  world  where  all 
things  slept.  The  ship's  brasswork  flashed  and 
burned  in  the  hot  light.  From  the  silence  of  the 
bow,  at  times,  came  the  sound  of  a  calling  voice, 
mournful  and  measured.  Naked-shouldered 
stokers,  blanched  and  wet  with  sweat,  crept  out 
to  the  mid-deck  rail  and  let  the  draft  that  al- 
leyed  along  the  companionways  cool  their  moist 
skin.  Now  and  then  a  flying-fish  rose  and  cir 
cled  away,  off  the  bow,  and  fell  shimmering  back 
into  the  turquoise  sea.  Piloting  the  ship's  cut 
water,  ever  raced  and  dodged  a  band  of  por 
poises.  Now  and  then  a  creeping  dorsal  fin  cut 
the  surface  of  the  water  and  slunk  away  again. 
It  seemed  to  impart  something  ominous  and  sin 
ister  to  the  unrelieved  brilliance  of  the  arching 
sky.  It  left  the  oily  and  unruffled  sea  menacing 
and  cadaverous-like  in  its  calm. 
The  ship  crept  on,  the  centre  of  its  circle  of 


178       THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

water  overhung  by  its  circle  of  sky.  Along  the 
flat  fringe  of  this  sky  were  ranged  low  tiers  of 
cumulus  clouds.  They  seemed  as  fixed  and  or 
derly  as  the  clouds  on  a  painted  stage-drop; 
they  stood  like  floating  flecks  of  cotton,  making 
a  circling  amphitheatre  of  the  lonely  sea. 
And  in  the  ever-shifting  centre  of  this  amphi 
theatre  throbbed  and  pulsed  the  thing  of  flash 
ing  brass-work  and  bone-white  decks,  of  sadly 
flapping  awnings,  of  quiet  men  with  watching 
and  melancholy  faces,  of  a  world  complete  in  it 
self.  As  the  long  afternoon  waned  and  the  sun 
dipped  behind  the  orange-red  sky-line  and  the 
light  passed  away,  the  orderly  and  sentinel 
lamps  were  hung  out.  Along  the  pitted  side- 
plates  writhed  blurred  lines  of  phosphorus. 
The  sea  became  a  circle  of  inky  blackness  fur 
rowed  by  two  ghostly  lines  of  foam.  The  sky 
melted  into  a  maze  of  velvet  and  lonely  light- 
points.  Along  the  shadowy  hatches  sat  and 
crooned  vaguely  outlined  groups  of  seamen, 
and  from  somewhere  below  decks  rose  the  sound 
of  string-music,  mournful,  outlandish,  touched 
with  mystery,  as  the  lonely  ship  and  the  huddled 
lives  she  sheltered  drifted  farther  and  farther 
southward. 

The  outward  sense  of  peace  that  brooded  over 
the  Laminian  was  not  shared  by  certain  of  her 
passengers.  Alicia  Boynton,  after  a  feverish 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STOEM        179 

night  and  a  day  in  her  berth,  emerged  from  her 
cabin  a  little  paler  than  before,  with  a  soft  hol 
low  of  anxiety  under  either  cheek-bone.  But 
otherwise  she  showed  no  sign  of  the  ordeal 
through  which  she  had  passed,  or  of  the  chaos 
of  uncertainty  which  still  confronted  her. 

McKinnon's  own  nights,  since  Hatteras  had 
been  left  behind,  had  been  equally  unsettled. 
His  restless  and  broken  sleep  was  disturbed  by 
dreams  wherein  he  thought  he  was  engulfed  in 
burning  quicksands,  and  held  fast  there,  when 
he  ought  to  be  at  his  key.  The  more  he  strug 
gled  and  raged  to  reach  his  instrument,  just  be 
yond  his  touch,  the  more  firmly  the  engulfing 
quicksands  seemed  to  hold  him.  Then  troubled 
visions  of  firing-squads  and  blindfolded  pris 
oners  of  war  would  run  through  his  brain,  of 
dark-skinned  little  soldiers  in  ragged  denim 
shouting  bravas  to  a  beautiful  woman  in  navy 
blue,  of  imprisonment  in  a  small  and  fetid 
quartet,  or  huge,  red-handed  conspirators  and 
drunken  and  cursing  ship-captains.  In  his  wak 
ing  hours  he  was  oppressed  by  a  continued  sense 
of  suspended  action,  like  that  ominous  impres 
sion  which  creeps  over  a  ship  when  her  engines 
stop  in  mid-ocean. 

The  drama  about  him  seemed  at  a  standstill. 
But  only  too  well  he  knew  that  this  suspense 
was  for  the  time  being  alone.  It  was  not  peace 


180       THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

into  which  they  were  drifting.  Things  had  gone 
too  far  for  a  long-continued  armistice.  And 
the  longer  a  truce  was  maintained,  McKinnon 
felt,  the  more  decisive  would  be  the  final  action. 
Events  were  merely  framing  themselves  for 
that  ultimate  surprise  which  he  was  hopeless 
to  forecast.  He  was  oppressed  by  the  feeling 
of  vague  conspiracies  being  enwoven  about  him. 
What  these  conspiracies  were,  he  could  not  even 
guess. 

His  one  escape  from  this  wearing  sense  of 
arrested  action  lay  in  his  key  and  recorder.  At 
all  times  of  the  day  he  worked  busily  at  his  ap 
paratus  or  brooded  patiently  over  his  tuner  and 
coherer.  Morning,  noon,  and  night  he  remained 
on  the  lookout  for  any  word  that  might  creep 
in  to  him.  And  all  the  while  he  kept  calling, 
doggedly,  hoping  against  hope  to  get  in  touch 
with  the  Princeton  or  at  least  to  pick  up  some 
stray  ship  or  station.  He  came  to  feel  some 
thing  forlorn,  something  poignant,  in  his  re 
peated  calls,  fluttering  out  and  dying  away  un 
answered  in  those  vague  etheric  wildernesses 
between  a  lonely  sea  and  a  lonely  sky.  They 
seemed  to  endow  the  wandering  ship  with  a 
pathos  like  that  of  a  lost  ewe  crying  alone  and 
unheard  in  the  night. 

Ganley's  own  attitude  made  this  waiting 
game  a  still  harder  one.  He  sauntered  about 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        181 

under  the  Laminian's  gently  flapping  awnings, 
smoking  his  flat-bellied  Hondurian  cigars,  as 
placid  and  unperturbed  as  a  commodore  pacing 
his  own  yacht  deck.  He  accosted  McKinnon, 
from  time  to  time,  with  the  off-handed  geniality 
of  long-established  comradeship.  He  appeared 
to  have  buried  all  memory  of  those  scenes  in 
which  he  had  taken  such  a  recent  and  such  an 
active  part.  He  divulged  nothing  of  the  plans 
which  were  fermenting  behind  the  bulwark  of 
his  low  and  massive  frontal  bone.  He  said  noth 
ing  of  the  doubts  and  uncertainties,  if  such  he 
had,  which  were  preying  on  his  mind.  But  all 
the  while  McKinnon  felt  that  he  was  being 
watched,  just  as  all  the  while  he  himself  was 
guardedly  watching  the  other. 

Once,  as  McKinnon  stood  alone  at  the  ship's 
rail,  Ganley  sauntered  over  with  his  ponderous 
and  deliberate  strides,  and  joined  him  in  his 
silent  study  of  the  star-strewn  heavens.  The 
operator  waited,  feeling  that  at  last  his  enigmat 
ic  enemy  was  about  to  speak.  But  the  gun 
runner's  meditative  eyes  remained  turned  up 
to  the  stars,  soft  and  warm  and  luminous 
against  a  sky  of  velvety  blackness.  He  seemed 
utterly  at  peace  with  the  world  and  his  own  soul, 
as  McKinnon  left  him  there,  contemplating  the 
intimidating  vast  dome  of  the  tropical  heavens. 

It  was  only  as  the  Laminian  rounded  the 


182       THE  LULL  IN  THE  STOEM 

eastern  coast  of  Cuba  that  McKinnon  detected 
any  signs  of  unusual  interest  in  the  gun 
runner's  actions.  He  caught  sight  of  him  at  the 
rail,  shadowed  by  one  of  the  life-boats,  scan 
ning  the  shore-line  through  his  binoculars.  He 
could  see  him  there  for  an  hour  or  more,  study 
ing  the  long,  grayish-yellow  littoral  land-shelf 
and  the  lonely  and  misty  blue  hills  beyond  it. 
He  stood  there,  expectantly,  as  though  in  search 
for  some  signal  which  was  not  to  be  found. 
Then  he  fell  to  walking  the  deck,  impatiently, 
between  the  engine-room  skylights  and  the  life 
boats.  McKinnon,  as  he  watched  him  striding 
back  and  forth,  with  a  touch  of  exasperation  out 
of  keeping  with  his  customarily  ponderous 
movements,  could  see  that  a  little  of  the  colour 
had  gone  from  his  pendulous  cheeks,  and  that 
his  deep-set  eyes  were  more  haggard  and  puffy 
than  usual. 

But  nothing  came  to  the  quiet  and  sun-steeped 
ship  to  relieve  McKinnon 's  accruing  sense  of 
anxiety.  His  coherer  wooed  no  response  from 
the  silence  about  him;  his  aerials  intercepted 
no  answering  message.  More  than  once  he  felt 
tempted  to  confront  his  impassive  and  quiescent 
opponent,  if  for  nothing  more  than  to  end  the 
strain,  to  knock  the  chip  off  his  shoulder  and 
bring  things  to  an  issue. 

But  Ganley  gave  him  no  opening.    And  again 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STOEM        183 

there  crept  through  the  younger  man,  as  the 
second  long  and  sultry  day  ended  in  a  black  and 
star-strewn  evening,  the  feeling  that  he  was 
friendless  and  alone,  far  from  his  own  kind. 
With  the  coming  of  the  calm  and  spacious 
tropical  night  there  came  to  him  a  more  com 
pelling  sense  of  his  isolation.  More  keenly  than 
ever  he  felt  the  barrier  that  his  own  dissimula 
tion  had  built  up  between  himself  and  Alicia 
Boynton.  There  was  a  barb  of  mockery,  he  felt, 
in  the  very  manner  in  which  he  had  been  com 
pelled  to  relinquish  a  friendship  that  had 
promised  to  mean  so  much  to  him.  He  tried 
to  tell  himself  that  a  man  must  fight  alone,  in 
warfare  such  as  that  he  was  facing,  that  he  must 
learn  to  accept  his  loneliness  as  a  natural  part 
of  the  game. 

Then,  of  a  sudden,  his  isolation  seemed  a 
thing  of  the  past.  For,  looking  up  as  he  sat 
crouched  before  his  tuner,  he  saw  a  figure 
standing  at  his  open  door.  And  it  did  not  take 
a  second  glance  to  show  him  that  this  figure 
was  the  figure  of  the  woman  of  whom  he  had 
been  thinking.  The  moment  he  caught  sight  of 
her,  in  her  low-throated  gown  of  white  linen,  he 
felt  the  subjugating  influence  of  her  presence. 
His  heart  began  to  beat  faster,  even  before  she 
stepped  in  across  his  coppered  door-sill.  He 
felt  grateful  for  her  companionship,  for  her 


184        THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

mere  presence  there.  He  noticed  the  restless 
ness  of  her  brooding  eyes  as  she  sank  into  the 
broken-armed  steamer-chair  that  he  placed  for 
her.  He  wondered  just  where  the  thread  of 
their  old  intercourse  would  be  taken  up  again. 

"Are  you  in  communication  with  any  thing  I" 
she  asked,  with  an  anxious  glance  at  his  ap 
paratus.  Her  tone  was  tentative  and  non-com 
mittal  ;  it  left  everything  still  unanswered. 

"No, "he  said.  * 

"You  can't  get  anything?" 

"Nothing  whatever,"  he  answered,  "though 
I've  been  calling  regularly,  twice  an  hour." 

"And  not  a  message  in  two  days?"  she  asked. 

"Yesterday  afternoon  I  picked  up  a  few 
words  from  an  Atlas  liner,  bound  north.  She 
seemed  to  be  reporting  distances.  But  I 
couldn't  get  enough  power;  my  coils  weren't 
strong  enough  to  reach  her." 

The  girl  rose  to  her  feet,  and  crossed  the 
cabin  and  stood  studying  the  faded  map  of  the 
Caribbean  on  the  closet  door. 

"But  aren't  there  chances  of  still  getting  in 
communication?"  she  asked.  "There  are  so 
many  ships,  nowadays,  that  carry  wireless." 

McKinnon  rose  and  stood  beside  her,  regard 
ing  the  map. 

"Yes,  there  are  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
ships,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  so  much 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        185 

ocean,  so  much  distance  to  swallow  them  up," 
he  explained,  indeterminately  feeling  that  the 
longer  he  could  hold  her  there  the  more  firmly 
the  tie  of  their  old  companionship  would  be  re 
established.  "Look  at  this  map,  for  instance, 
with  all  these  islands  that  seem  so  terribly  close. 
In  the  Bahamas  alone  there  are  three  dozen 
good-sized  islands,  and  over  six  hundred  cays, 
and  nearly  twenty-five  hundred  rocks  of  one 
kind  or  another.  You'd  imagine,  to  look  at 
them  on  the  map  here,  that  you'd  hardly  get  a 
ship  through  without  bumping  into  one  of  them. 
But  when  you're  down  here  actually  cruising 
among  them,  going  days  without  a  glimpse  of 
land,  you  realise  how  far  apart  they  actually  lie. 
And  it's  the  same  with  ships.  It's  possible  we 
may  not  get  another  call  all  the  way  across  the 
Caribbean." 

"That  means  the  Princeton  won't  be  at 
Puerto  Locombia?" 

"Not  unless  I  can  pick  her  up." 

"Then  it's  hopeless!" 

"I  can't  say  the  case  is  hopeless,"  parried 
McKinnon.  "But  the  chances  are  against  us. 
All  we  can  do  is  wait  and  be  ready.  Sometimes, 
on  clear  nights  like  these,  we  can  make  wireless 
carry  a  surprising  distance." 

"There  must  be  somebody — some  ship!"  per 
sisted  the  girl,  as  she  sank  into  the  chair  again. 


186        THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

He  began  to  wish,  as  he  watched  her,  that  it 
lay  in  his  power  to  bring  some  touch  of  content 
ment  to  those  unhappy  and  anxious  eyes  before 
him. 

''We'll  surely  overhaul  the  Princeton,"  he 
had  the  hardihood  to  assert,  "if  she's  lying  to 
anywhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Culebra." 

"And  if  that  fails?"  asked  the  girl. 

"I'm  hoping  we'll  still  be  able  to  pick  up 
Puerto  Locombia  itself,"  he  ventured. 

She  shook  her  head  meditatively,  absent- 
mindedly. 

"There  is  no  station  at  Puerto  Locombia." 

"No  station?"  cried  McKinnon. 

"It  will  be  dismantled — most  likely  it  will  be 
burned  to  the  ground  by  this  time.  If  De  Bri- 
gard  is  fighting  his  way  up  to  the  capital,  he 
would  never  leave  a  coast-station  behind  him, 
to  be  calling  for  help." 

Here  was  news,  indeed,  thought  McKinnon; 
and  a  sudden  grateful  look  leaped  into  his  eyes, 
as  he  realised  the  misstep  from  which  she  had 
saved  him. 

"Can  you  remember  if  there  is  a  telegraph- 
line  between  Puerto  Locombia  and  that  capi 
tal?"  he  asked,  after  a  moment  of  deep  thought. 

"There  was  one,  once,"  answered  the  woman. 
"But  their  poles  rotted  down  in  less  than  a  year 
— the  heat  and  rain  and  insects  of  that  climate, 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        187 

you  know,  will  make  a  log  as  high  as  your  table 
crumble  away  in  one  season.  So  the  govern 
ment  brought  in  a  shipload  of  street-car  rails, 
I  think  they  were  second-hand  rails  from  Kings 
ton,  and  planted  them  for  poles  to  carry  the 
line  up  to  Guariqui.  But  the  natives  kept  cut 
ting  out  sections  of  the  wire  for  their  own  use, 
to  mend  saddle-girths  and  tie  up  hut-wattles, 
and  it  took  three-quarters  of  Arturo's  govern 
ment  troops  to  patrol  the  route  and  keep  the 
line  open.  So  they  gave  it  up,  at  last,  and  fitted 
up  the  three  wireless  stations." 

She  did  not  join  in  McKinnon's  laugh  over 
the  untimely  end  of  Locombia's  telegraph- 
system.  . 

"  Where  is  the  third  station — the  one  besides 
Guariqui  and  Puerto  Locombial!"  he  asked. 

"At  Boracao — that's  the  biggest  of  the 
banana-shipping  towns.'* 

"It's  hard  to  have  to  sit  and  wait  for — for 
the  inevitable  this  way,"  he  said,  with  an  as 
sumption  of  cheeriness. 

* '  Yes,  it  is  hard, ' '  she  said,  out  of  the  silence 
that  once  more  fell  over  them. 

He  felt,  none  the  less,  wordlessly  grateful  for 
her  presence  there,  talking  or  silent.  She 
seemed  to  bring  a  new  and  more  vital  atmos 
phere  into  his  squalid  little  station.  She  seemed 
to  throw  a  warm  and  transforming  tint  on 


188        THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

everything  about  her,  as  he  had  seen  a  rose- 
tinted  stage-light  alter  and  enrich  the  canvas 
and  tinsel  of  a  Broadway  playhouse. 

He  saw  her  take  a  long  and  troubled  breath, 
look  up  at  him,  and  once  more  look  away.  The 
hum  and  whir  of  his  electric  fan  was  the  only 
sound  in  the  cabin. 

"I  don't  think  either  of  us  has  been  quite 
honest  with  the  other,"  she  said,  compelling 
herself  to  meet  his  puzzled  gaze. 

1  'I  know — and  I'm  sorry,"  he  replied,  puz 
zling  her  again  by  his  note  of  humanity. 

"I've  told  you  an  untruth,"  she  said  at  last, 
taking  another  deep  breath. 

* '  In  what  way  ? ' '  a^ked  McKinnon. 

"I  lied  to  you,  when  Ganley  and  you  were  in 
my  cabin.  I  can't  let  it  go  on.  I  can't  endure 
the  thought  of  this  lie  standing  between  us  like 
— oh,  like  a  quicksand  that  can  never  be 
crossed." 

"But  what  is  it?"  asked  the  other. 

She  looked  up  at  him  again,  very  steadily  and 
very  bravely. 

"I  told  you  that  my  husband  was  dead,"  she 
answered  in  her  low  and  constrained  voice. 
"He  is  not  dead." 

"He  is  not  dead?"  echoed  McKinnon. 

"I  said  that  he  died  of  yellow  fever.  He  took 
the  fever  and  was  ill  with  it.  But  he  did  not 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        189 

die.  He  was  sentenced  and  sent  to  the  Island 
of  Malpanto,  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The  Locom- 
bian  penal  colony  is  there.  He  was  sent  there, 
for  life.  He  was  dead,  to  all  the  world — he  was 
dead  to  me." 

"Then  he  is  dead,  to  all " 

"Wait.  I  wanted  to  make  sure  of  my  free 
dom,  to  be  foolishly  sure  of  it.  So  I  went  North. 
Then  I  went  to  New  Orleans,  to  my  old  home." 

"But  why?"  he  asked,  as  he  noticed  her 
hesitation. 

"A  felony,  in  Louisiana,  is  a  cause  for  ab 
solute  divorce." 

"You  mean  you  were  set  free  in  your  own 
country ! ' ' 

*  *  Yes,  that  is  why  I  went  to  the  United  States. 
That  is  why  I  was  there  when  the  news  of  this 
revolution  first  reached  me." 

"And  Ganley  knows  this!"  McKinnon  de 
manded. 

1 '  Ganley  knows  everything, ' '  she  answered. 

"And  this  is  why  you  are  so  against  him?" 

She  had  to  school  herself  into  self-control  be 
fore  she  could  go  on. 

"I  have  a  better  reason  for  being  against  him. 
If  he  and  his  Liberal  Party  once  acquire  power, 
Ganley  will  bring  Perralta  back  to  Guariqui ;  he 
will  commute  his  sentence.  He  will  do  this  to 
strike  at  my  brother  Arturo," 


190        THE  LULL  IN  THE  STOEM 

McKinnon  looked  at  her  in  amazed  and  silent 
comprehension.  At  last  he  seemed  able  to 
understand,  disturbed  as  he  was  by  the  thought 
of  so  fragile  a  figure  entangled  in  such  brutal 
and  rudimentary  conflicts.  The  lack  of  motive 
for  her  presence  in  the  same  circle  with  Gan- 
ley,  whether  facing  or  following  such  a  man, 
had  been  the  underground  yet  actual  cause  of 
more  than  one  of  his  wayward  suspicions.  But 
now  he  understood.  And  her  confession,  in 
stead  of  shocking  and  disturbing  him,  brought 
into  his  softened  eyes  a  sense  of  release,  of  more 
perfect  understanding.  What  she  had  told  him 
seemed  to  humanise  her,  to  bring  her  into  touch 
with  the  world  of  realities  as  he  had  met  and 
known  it.  The  last  of  his  old-time  fear  of  her, 
his  hampering  awe  of  her,  had  vanished. 

"We  are  both  against  Ganley,"  he  said,  as 
though  speaking  to  himself. 

"You  are  against  Ganley?"  she  questioned. 

"To  the  end  of  time!"  he  answered,  with  a 
solemnity  that  brought  her  great  wondering 
eyes  up  to  his.  She  noticed  that  he  rose  from 
his  chair  and  closed  the  cabin  door. 

"Why  have  you  changed?" 

' '  I  have  not  changed ! ' ' 

"Then  what  is  it?" 

"It's  that  I'm  at  last  going  to  be  half  honest 
with  you — that  I  can't  continue  not  being 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        191 

honest  with  you!  I  am  on  this  ship  for  the 
same  purpose  that  you  are  here." 

"To  gotoLocombia?" 

"No— to  defeat  Ganley.I" 

"For  what  reason?" 

"For  your  reason!" 

"But  for  whom?" 

"For  the  Minister  of  War  of  the  United 
States  of  Locombia,"  answered  McKinnon.  He 
leaned  towards  her  a  little  as  he  spoke,  and 
lowered  his  voice,  with  a  warning  side-glance 
towards  the  closed  door. 

"But  my  brother  Arturo  is  the  Locombian 
Minister  of  War,"  she  maintained,  her  eyes  still 
wide  with  wonder. 

"And  for  two  months  past  I've  been  commis 
sioned  by  your  brother  to  keep  in  touch  with 
practically  every  so-called  'Liberal'  expatriate 
in  New  York.  And  only  twenty  hours  before 
this  ship  sailed  I  found  out  what  it  carried  and 
why  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  be  on  board  of 
it." 

For  a  full  minute  she  did  not  utter  a  word. 

"Then  you  are  a  spy?"  she  said,  at  last. 

' '  Scarcely  a  spy — I  am  merely  a  Secret  Agent 
for  Arturo  Boynton's  government,"  was  his 
answer. 

He  could  see  the  deep  breath  she  took  as  she 


192       THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM 

leaned  relaxingly  back  in  the  broken-armed 
steamer-chair. 

"Then  we  are  acting  together,"  she  mur 
mured,  slowly,  still  a  little  mystified,  still  a  little 
sceptical  as  to  this  new  issue  which  was  reunit 
ing  them. 

"Yes,  we're  acting  together — and  we'll  never 
let  Ganley  win ! ' '  said  McKinnon. 

It  was  something  more  than  the  fire  of  foolish 
ardour.  And  the  woman  at  his  side  must  have 
seen  and  known  it,  for  a  touch  of  colour  came 
into  her  pale  cheek.  The  electric  fan  purred 
and  hummed  on  its  little  bracket.  The  soft  and 
balmy  night  air  beat  on  their  faces.  The  gloom 
and  quietness  of  the  ship  was  about  them. 

"Won't  you  let  me  fight  this  fight  out,  for 
you?"  he  asked,  surrendering  to  the  tide  of  feel 
ing  that  seemed  tearing  him  from  all  his  old 
anchorages. 

"If  we  only  could!"  she  said,  inadequately. 

"We  can,  together,"  he  cried,  with  blind  and 
unreasoning  hope,  resenting  the  look  of  some 
thing  that  seemed  strangely  akin  to  pity  as  she 
gazed  up  at  him. 

She  did  not  answer,  in  words,  but  some  slowly 
transforming  emotion,  some  inner  and  unut- 
tered  capitulation  slowly  overbore  the  look  of 
trouble  that  weighed  upon  her.  Then  she  closed 
her  eyes,  as  though  shutting  out  some  glimpse 


THE  LULL  IN  THE  STORM        193 

of  happiness  too  great  to  be  anything  but  a 
mockery.  Before  she  opened  them  McKinnon 
had  her  hand  between  his  great  bony  fingers, 
and  reckless  fire  and  warmth  and  daring  went 
singing  through  his  veins. 

"I'm  going  to  fight  this  out  for  you,"  he  said, 
"and  I'm  going  to  win  because  you  want  me  to 
win ! ' ' 

"Oh,  it  will  be  hard!"  she  murmured,  with 
a  vibrato,  of  something  that  was  almost  hap 
piness  in  her  voice. 

"Hard!"  he  cried,  in  his  new-born  and  un 
reasoning  audacity;  "I'd  fight  through  Hell  it 
self  for  you!" 


CHAPTEE  XVI 

THE  VERNAL  INVASION 

GANLEY,  togged  out  in  a  loose-fitting  and 
many-wrinkled  suit  of  white  duck,  was  pacing 
the  Laminian's  bridge-deck,  like  a  polar  bear 
pacing  its  cage. 

He  watched  the  morning  sun  come  up,  bright 
and  brazen,  like  a  newly  minted  penny.  He 
watched  the  aerials  bridging  the  mastheads 
and  waiting  like  a  seine  to  net  any  wandering 
school  of  seolian  notes.  He  watched  the  bare 
footed  sailors  sluice  the  steaming  deck-boards. 
But  most  of  all  he  watched  the  sky-line  ahead, 
with  many  ruminative  uplifts  of  his  heavy  iron- 
grey  eyebrows. 

It  startled  him  a  little  to  see  McKinnon 
emerge  from  the  deck  below,  fresh  from  his 
early  bath  in  a  rusty  iron  tub  that  had  long  since 
parted  with  its  porcelain,  whistling  like  a  sand 
boy  as  he  climbed  the  brass-plated  stairs. 

He  emerged  from  the  stair-head  in  a  suit  of 
fresh  linen,  clean  and  cool-looking,  as  chirpy  as 

194 


THE  VERNAL  INVASION          195 

a  city  sparrow  at  a  fountain-rim.  It  even  dis 
turbed  Ganley  a  little  to  behold  him  so  cause 
lessly  and  so  mysteriously  happy. 

But  what  more  seriously  disturbed  the  guar 
dedly  watching  man  was  the  trivial  discovery 
that  McKinnon  took  a  key  from  his  pocket  as 
he  approached  his  station  door,  that  he  inserted 
it  in  the  lock  and  turned  it  before  he  gained 
admittance  to  his  narrow  operating  quarters. 
It  obviously  meant  that,  for  some  reason  or 
other,  the  wireless-room  was  thereafter  to  be 
kept  under  lock  and  key. 

McKinnon  himself  knew  there  were  more  rea 
sons  than  one  for  that  early  morning  mood  of 
his.  It  was  not  the  mere  thought  that  he  could 
now  claim  a  definite  and  dependable  ally  which 
brought  his  lightheartedness  back  to  him.  It 
was  more  the  consciousness  of  that  new  cama 
raderie  which  must  exist  between  him  and 
Alicia  Boynton,  the  promise  of  close  and  subtle 
companionship  with  a  young  and  lovely  woman 
whose  interests  were  to  be  his  interests.  It  was 
the  realisation  that  at  last  duty  and  desire  had 
been  made  one. 

He  found  something  wordlessly  consoling  in 
the  fact  that  as  the  long  tropical  morning  wore 
away  he  could  look  up  from  his  tuner  and 
phones  and  rest  his  eye  on  the  white-clad  figure 
of  the  girl,  not  a  stone's  throw  away  from  him. 


196          THE  VERNAL  INVASION 

It  was  understood  that  they  were  not  to  meet 
openly.  But  he  knew,  as  he  looked  out  at  her 
from  time  to  time,  and  saw  her  lying  idly  back 
under  the  patched  awnings  of  the  bridge-deck, 
apparently  engrossed  in  a  book,  that  she  was 
quietly  cooperating  with  him  in  keeping  a  watch 
of  their  common  enemy. 

The  first-fruits  of  this  quiet  espionage  was 
the  disturbing  sight  of  Ganley  making  his  way 
to  Captain  Yandel's  stateroom. 

What  took  place  there  it  was  impossible  to 
tell.  All  that  Alicia  could  be  sure  of  was  that 
he  remained  for  half  an  hour  with  the  ship's 
master.  For  the  past  few  days,  she  suspected, 
this  thick-necked  and  bullock-minded  officer  had 
been  more  than  ever  under  the  influence  of 
liquor.  Alcohol,  apparently,  only  served  to 
crown  his  sullen  taciturnity  with  an  animal-like 
ferociousness  when  interfered  with  or  even  ac 
costed.  That  silent  and  friendless  man,  she 
knew,  was  not  one  to  be  easily  won  over.  He 
had  neither  the  brains  nor  the  ambition  to  dis 
rupt  the  even  tenor  of  his  oxlike  days  by  affilia 
tions  with  anything  so  disquieting  as  a  revolu 
tion-maker.  He  was  not  open  to  a  gun-runner's 
negocio,  or  he  would  surely  have  played  his 
hand  earlier  in  the  game. 

Yet  there  was  something  terrifying  to  her  in 
the  mere  fact  that  Ganley  could  remain  closeted 


THE  VERNAL  INVASION          197 

with  that  autocratic  functionary  for  so  long, 
whether  the  time  was  being  spent  in  bribe-pass 
ing  or  in  imbibing  aguardiente  flavoured  with 
Jamaica  rum  and  dried  mint-leaves. 

Her  fear  fell  away  from  her,  however,  when 
she  saw  Ganley  come  out  of  the  stateroom  door 
again.  His  face  was  dark  and  troubled,  and  to 
the  guardedly  watching  woman,  his  tread  seemed 
heavy  and  spiritless. 

She  explained  the  episode  to  McKinnon,  an 
hour  later,  when  he  casually  strolled  below  and 
slipped  unobserved  into  her  cabin,  as  they  had 
arranged. 

"I  don't  think  even  Ganley  could  placate  a 
beast  like  Yandel,"  explained  the  operator. 
"It  would  be  like  trying  to  wheedle  yourself 
into  the  good  graces  of  a  grizzly.  And  he's 
been  drinking — drinking  abominably.  It  would 
be  worse  than  trying  to  pet  a  boa-constrictor. 
He  knows  how  to  navigate  a  ship,  and  that  is 
all." 

'  *  But  if  Ganley  should  put  the  whole  case  be 
fore  him,  and  make  the  bribe  a  sufficiently  big 
one  ?  Suppose  he  waits  until  the  last,  and  then 
simply  buys  him  over1?" 

McKinnon  shook  his  head. 

"He's  not  the  buyable  kind,  or  he  would  have 
been  bought  before.  And  then  he's  against 


198          THE  VERNAL  INVASION 

everything — he  simply  lives  by  fight  and  fric 
tion  and  opposition." 

"But  think  of  his  power!" 

"I  don't  think  we  need  to,  when  we  remember 
he's  nothing  but  a  whisky-tippling  and  satur 
nine  misanthrope." 

"Still,  couldn't  he  be  bought  over,  if  the 
bribe  were  made  big  enough?  As  big  as  Gan- 
ley  could  afford  to  make  it?" 

"I  don't  pretend  to  knowledge  as  to  what  a 
man  will  do  when  he's  tempted  enough,"  an 
swered  McKinnon,  as  he  fixed  his  absent  and 
studious  eyes  on  the  troubled  woman.  "But 
something  instinctively  tells  me  Captain  Yandel 
is  not  going  to  be  our  danger-point."  He  was 
silent  for  a  moment  or  two,  for  her  question  had 
sent  his  ever-active  mind  off  on  a  new  tangent. 

"/  must  be  the  one  to  temporise  with  him  and 
keep  him  guessing  until  it's  too  late!" 

"But  it  would  only  make  things  worse,  in  the 
end." 

1 1  Could  they  be  any  worse  1 ' ' 

"Perhaps  not,  but  can  you  expect  Ganley  to 
trust  you  now?" 

"I  don't  think  he  quite  understands,  yet. 
And  I'll  go  to  him  and  give  him  back  his  re 
volver.  It's  no  use  to  me — and  I've  noticed  he 
carries  a  second  gun." 


THE  VERNAL  INVASION          199 

"But  you,  yourself?"  interposed  his  com 
panion.  McKinnon  touched  his  pocket. 

"I've  had  to  carry  this,  now  and  then,  even 
before  this  trouble.  But  we  can't  lose  anything 
by  keeping  in  touch  with  him.  And  there's  al 
ways  the  chance  of  my  wireless  picking  up  some 
thing." 

"Suppose  Captain  Yandel  has  spoken  to  him 
of  the  scene  in  your  room?"  asked  the  girl,  ap 
parently  disturbed  by  some  new  thought. 

"Which  scene?" 

"When  you  told  him  I  was  your — your  wife," 
she  explained,  with  heightened  colour. 

"I'm  sorry  I  had  to  stoop  to  a  trick  like 
that, ' '  said  the  other,  with  unexpected  humility. 

"It  will  make  it  so  much  harder,  later,"  she 
ventured. 

"I'm  sorry,"  was  all  he  could  say.  Her  face 
suddenly  coloured  with  a  deeper  flush  at  the 
thought  that  he  had  misinterpreted  her. 

"By  later  I  mean  all  that  we  may  have  to  go 
through  before  we  are  off  this  ship." 

'  *  Then  escape  from  this  ship  is  to  be  counted 
the  end  of  everything1?"  he  asked. 

"No,  no;"  she  murmured,  "the  beginning." 

'  *  Could  it  be  the  beginning  I  am  hoping  f  or  ? " 

She  drew  back  from  him  and  looked  about 
her,  as  though  she  had  suddenly  reawakened  to 
their  immediate  surroundings. 


200         THE  VERNAL  INVASION 

"  Neither  of  us  has  the  right  to  hope,  until 
we  are  free." 

"But  we  will  be  free — we  are  free!" 

"Not  until  we  have  escaped  from  Ganley  and 
all  he  stands  for." 

"Ganley,  then,  is  our  first  bridge,"  he  cried, 
with  sudden  energy. 

"Yes — our  first  bridge!" 

"Then  before  we  cross  that  bridge  I'm  going 
to  test  a  girder  or  two!" 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  PROFFERED  CROWN 

THE  Laminian's  wireless-operator  sat  in  his 
room,  three  hours  later,  with  his  door  hooked 
back  against  the  wall-plates  and  his  window- 
curtains  gently  flapping.  From  its  unpainted 
Bhelf  droned  and  hummed  his  dry-battery  elec 
tric  fan.  A  seaman  passed  by  under  the  awn 
ing,  carrying  in  his  hand  a  cluster  of  deck- 
lamps.  From  the  open  ventilator-heads  came 
the  discordant  sound  of  steel  shovels  grating  on 
steel,  the  occasional  slam  of  a  furnace  door,  the 
throb  and  pulse  of  the  unvarying  engines. 
Otherwise  it  was  very  quiet;  sea  and  sky  met 
in  a  world  of  unbroken  peace  which  the  passing 
of  so  incongruous  a  thing  of  steel  and  steam  dis 
turbed  for  only  a  moment,  agitated  foolishly, 
yet  for  only  a  heart-throb  or  two. 

Then  high  above  the  quiet  deck  sounded  out 
an  even  more  incongruous  noise,  the  nervous, 
tense  staccato  of  the  wireless  ''spark."  It 
seemed  like  some  underworld  god  of  speed 

201 


202        THE  PROFFERED  CROWN 

striking  out  titanic  chords;  it  was  like  some 
ghostly  fingers  playing  on  a  harp  of  haste.  Mc- 
Kinnon  sat  between  his  four  flashing  white 
walls  and  sent  his  Hertzian  waves  arrowing  out 
over  the  lonely  acres  of  the  Caribbean,  hurling 
his  coil's  mysterious  and  imponderable  force 
against  the  engulfing  isolation  of  the  sea.  Then 
came  a  space  of  silence  and  again  the  blue- 
coloured  sprite  danced  and  jigged  at  the  mast 
head. 

As  McKinnon  had  secretly  hoped,  that  sus 
tained  rattle  and  roar  of  his  "  spark"  brought 
to  his  open  door  the  huge  and  white-clad  figure 
that  had  been  meditatively  pacing  the  bridge- 
deck. 

"Could  you  take  a  message  for  me,  if  you're 
in  touch  with  anything?"  asked  Ganley  from 
the  doorway. 

The  operator  put  down  his  earphones  and 
motioned  for  the  other  man  to  enter. 

"I  thought  I  had  something  then,"  he  ex 
plained,  "but  it's  only  static  breaking 
through!" 

"What's  static!" 

"Lightning-flashes,  somewhere  beyond  the 
skyline.  I  can  hear  'em  go  like  a  roll  of  drums 
that  bend  up  to  what  we  call  a  cough  or  sneeze." 

"Perhaps  you're  not  in  good  running  order," 
ventured  Ganley,  eying  the  apparatus  as  a 


THE  PROFFERED  CROWN        203 

street  cat  might  eye  a  canary  behind  its  cage- 
bars. 

"It's  working  as  smooth  as  oil,"  answered 
McKinnon,  adjusting  his  receiver  again  and  lis 
tening  for  a  minute  or  two.  ' '  But  we  're  too  far 
away  from  things.  We're  drifting  too  far 
away  from  a  white  man's  world." 

Ganley  sat  down  with  his  slow  and  ponderous 
deliberateness.  McKinnon  found  it  hard  to  say 
just  what  he  wanted  to  say,  for  the  weight  of 
their  last  encounter  was  still  heavy  on  his  spirit. 

The  other  man  seemed  to  understand  the 
source  of  his  embarrassment.  He  sat  back,  at 
last,  and  diffidently  remarked:  "You  had  some 
thing  to  say  to  me?" 

McKinnon  reached  a  long  thin  arm  over  to 
the  back  of  his  operating-table. 

"  Yes,  I'd  forgotten  to  give  you  back  this  gun 
of  yours,"  he  said,  as  he  held  the  revolver  out 
to  its  owner. 

Ganley  took  it,  diffidently,  turned  it  over  in 
his  fingers,  puckered  his  heavy  lips,  and  casu 
ally  dropped  the  gun  into  his  side  pocket.  Then 
he  looked  up  at  the  other  man. 

"That  was  pretty  ugly  talk  you  got  about  me 
the  other  night,"  he  began,  sliding  low  in  his 
chair  until  his  attitude  was  nothing  more  than 
a  nonchalant  lounge.  "I  suppose  you  swal- 


204         THE  PROFFERED  CROWN 

lowed  it  whole — everything  that  attractive 
young  woman  said?" 

It  cost  McKinnon  an  effort  to  hold  himself 
in,  but  the  only  line  of  procedure  in  warfare 
such  as  this,  he  had  learned,  was  the  indirect 
one. 

"I  don't  believe  everything  I  hear,"  was  his 
answer,  as  he  assumed  an  equally  indifferent 
position. 

"I  guess  most  stories  Ve  got  their  two 
sides,"  remarked  Ganley,  largely. 

"This  woman,  though,  eJaims  you're  nothing 
more  than  a  gun-runner,"  the  younger  man 
carelessly  reminded  him. 

"Well,  1  am,"  suddenly  declared  Ganley,  with 
his  little  deep-set  eyes  squarely  on  the  other 
man's.  " Can't  there  be  two  sides  to  gun-run 
ning?" 

"The  law  side  and  the  outlaw  side,  I  sup 
pose,"  suggested  McKinnon. 

Ganley  stared  at  him,  a  little  heavily,  a  little 
impatiently,  as  the  beetling  iron-grey  eye 
brows  worked  ruminatively  up  and  down. 

"Look  here,  son,  I  want  you  to  understand 
this  situation !  These  bodega-hugging,  labour- 
loathing  fire-eaters  down  here  have  got  to  have 
their  theatricals.  And  you've  got  to  have  some 
body  set  the  stage  and  supply  the  coloured  lights 


THE  PROFFERED  CROWN         205 

for  'em.  And  if  one  man  doesn't  tote  in  the 
fireworks,  another  damned  soon  will." 

"And  toting  in  the  fireworks  is  your 
business?" 

1 ' That's  my  business !  I  keep  supplying  them 
with  the  nicest  little  pin-wheels  that  money  can 
buy.  They've  got  to  have  'em,  no  matter  where 
they  come  from.  So  I'm  keeping  their  show 
going,  and  I'm  making  them  pay  for  it  good 
and  plenty." 

"You  only  supply  the  fireworks?" 

"Not  always;  but  ain't  even  that  enough? 
It's  revolutions  and  revolution-talk  that  run 
their  cafes — for  you'll  notice  these  little  distrac 
tions  always  start  in  the  cities,  where  there's 
plenty  of  vino  bianco  and  spare  time.  There's 
not  a  republic  down  there  that's  able  to  eat 
right,  if  it  hasn't  got  a  boundary  dispute  to 
take  up  its  spare  time,  or  a  junta-fed  patriot 
to  keep  handing  out  rebel  proclamations.  They 
live  on  'em.  And  I  keep  their  vaudeville  going 
for  'em." 

"But  hasn't  this  particular  calling  its  par 
ticular  dangers?"  McKinnon  casually  inquired. 

"That's  part  of  the  game!  There  are  even 
men  down  there  who'd  go  so  far  as  to  call  me 
a  lawbreaker.  If  that's  what  I  am,  I'd  like  to 
know  what  you'd  call  those  Yankee  concession- 
hunters  and  wire-pullers  and  bribe-givers  who 


206        THE  PROFFERED  CROWN 

burrow  around  for  underground  contracts  and 
then  run  squealing  to  Washington  like  a  stuck 
pig  every  time  a  peon  slaps  a  banana-car  with  a 
machete!  No,  sir,  that's  my  market,  and  I'm 
going  to  hold  it.  I'm  going  to  climb  onto  that 
Guariqui  gang's  pay-car  and  hang  the  complete 
sign  over  its  dashboard!" 

"But  isn't  this  man  De  Brigard  getting  there 
ahead  of  you!"  ventured  McKinnon,  watching 
for  the  effect  of  that  softly  exploratory  probe. 

"I  guess  I'll  be  in  time  for  a  little  of  the 
fun,"  answered  Ganley,  guardedly.  The  other 
was  compelled  to  acknowledge  there  was  some 
thing  primordially  massive  about  this  uncouth 
Caribbean  king-maker.  There  was  something 
titanic  and  persuasive  about  this  self-confessed 
filibuster  of  petty  republics.  His  very  audacity 
was  a  ponderable  asset.  The  sheer  force  of  the 
man  could  still  appeal  to  some  substratum  of 
romance  in  the  other's  none  too  emotional  state 
of  mind. 

Some  trace  of  this  feeling  must  have  shown 
itself  in  McKinnon 's  half -smiling  glance,  for  a 
new  confidence  crept  into  the  tones  of  the  man 
so  closely  watching  him. 

"I've  been  in  my  tight  holes,"  he  placidly 
declared,  folding  his  arms  over  his  great  chest. 
"And  I've  got  out  of  'em,  every  time,  just  as 
I'm  going  to  get  out  of  this  one!" 


THE  PROFFERED  CROWN         207 

"But  where's  the  hole,  this  time?"  mildly  in 
quired  the  operator. 

"Not  bein'  dead  sure  I've  got  you  on  my 
side,"  said  his  candid  enemy. 

"But  you  have  got  me!"  protested  the  other. 

"Then  why  haven't  you  been  sayin'  so?" 

"I  can't  say  so,  openly!  I've  got  to  watch  my 
self  and  go  slow,"  equivocated  McKinnon. 

"But  what's  the  use  o'  falling  between  two 
stools'?  Why  not  swing  in  with  the  right  side, 
nip  and  tuck,  while  you've  still  got  the 
chance  ? ' ' 

Ganley  was  on  his  feet  by  this  time,  stand 
ing  over  him. 

"See  here,  you're  no  piker.  You're  quick, 
and  you're  clever. 

"You're  not  afraid  of  a  big  thing,  just  be 
cause  it  is  big.  I've  got  my  wires  laid,  and  I'm 
going  to  knock  that  Locombian  government  off 
its  feet,  if  it  costs  me  half  a  million  to  do  it. 
I'm  goin'  to  blow  it  higher 'n  Gilroy's  kite. 
They've  got  chromium-mines  down  there  worth 
more'n  a  million.  I'm  going  to  clean  out  that 
Guariqui  gang  and  I'm  going  to  do  it  good  when 
I  do  it.  That 's  my  country  down  there, ' '  and  he 
waved  a  great  apelike  arm  toward  the  south 
west,  "and  a  week  from  now '11  see  it  made  into 
a  white  man's  land." 

McKinnon  peered  up  at  him,  wondering  if  by 


208        THE  PROFFERED  CROWN 

any  chance  the  man  had  indeed  persuaded  him 
self  of  the  justness  of  his  cause. 

"I  tell  you  you've  got  to  swing  in  with  us," 
Ganley  was  blandly  declaring.  "You  haven't 
any  show.  This  work  is  going  to  be  done  quick 
and  done  quiet. ' ' 

"But  how  about  leaks?" 

"There's  not  going  to  be  any  leaks.  I've  got 
my  plan  for  that." 

"What  plan?" 

Ganley  laughed  his  short  and  mirthless  laugh. 

"A  little  plan  to  keep  things  quiet.  The  one 
and  only  thing  we  don't  want  is  interference. 
It's  our  fight,  and  once  we  win  it  there'll  be  no 
trouble.  We  're  a  nation  then,  damn  it,  the  New 
Liberal  Party.  We're  a  government  of  our 
own,  and  we  can  go  back  and  patch  up  outside 
quarrels  when  we  see  fit." 

"But  what  will  you  do  with  the  Laminian? 
How  about  our  captain,  for  instance?"  McKin- 
non  asked. 

"I'll  give  him  more  than  aguardiente  to 
worry  over!"  declared  the  gun-runner,  with  a 
snort  of  contempt  for  that  saturnine  ship's 
master.  "Oh,  I've  got  this  thing  figured  out  as 
close  as  a  sum  in  arithmetic.  Some  night  this 
week  our  men  are  to  surround  their  little  two- 
by-four  capital.  Tuesday  morning,  by  day 
break,  if  our  guns  and  stuff  are  all  landed, 


THE  PROFFERED  CROWN        209 

they'll  begin  to  cannonade.  By  Tuesday  after 
noon  we'll  be  advancing  on  the  Palace  itself. 
By  Wednesday  night  we'll  have  Duran  and  his 
gang  shelled  out  or  our  own  men  shoved  in.  By 
sun-up  on  Thursday  we'll  have  Duran  deposed 
and  the  new  government  declared,  an  hour 
after  those  Palace  gates  come  down,  with  our 
own  men  in  office.  There's  no  use  my  beating 
round  the  bush  with  you  any  longer.  It's  all 
got  to  come.  And  I  don't  want  you  workin' 
against  us.  I  know  you're  game  enough;  and  I 
like  your  style.  I  don't  want  to  see  you  cuttin' 
your  own  throat.  And  if  you  see  us  through 
for  the  next  two  or  three  days  I'll  do  the  right 
thing  by  you." 

"How  the  right  thing?" 

"I'll  deed  you  over  a  third  interest  in  the 
Parroto  chromium  mines,  and  make  you  Min 
ister  of  Telegraphs  for  the  new  republic,  with  a 
salary  of  six  thousand  dollars  in  gold!" 

Some  momentary  spirit  of  romance,  of  vast 
issues  and  strange  dangers,  of  hazards  and 
risks  in  far-off  corners  of  the  earth,  seemed  to 
hover  about  the  hot  and  stuffy  little  cabin. 

"I  mean  it,"  went  on  Ganley,  as  placid  and 
persuasive  as  before.  "I'll  tie  myself  down  to 
it.  And  that  hill-town  of  Guariqui  is  going  to 
be  a  mighty  livable  little  city  when  we  do  it 
over!" 


210        THE  PEOFFEEED  CEOWN 

"It's  not  Guariqui  I'm  afraid  of,"  was  Mc- 
Kinnon's  evasive  answer.  He  was  thinking,  not 
so  much  how  some  spirit  of  youth  and  adven 
ture  less  sophisticated  than  his  own  might  be 
stunned  and  intoxicated  by  such  prospects  as 
these,  but  just  how  he  was  going  to  discover 
Ganley 's  undivulged  plan  for  keeping  Puerto 
Locombia  clear  of  all  outsiders. 

"Then  what  are  you  afraid  of?"  demanded 
Ganley. 

"It's  so  big/'  complained  the  other.  "So 
big  for  me,  I  mean ! ' ' 

Ganley  laughed,  a  little  scornfully. 

"Then  take  a  day  or  two  off  and  get  used  to 
it.  Sleep  on  it,  and  let  me  know  how  you  feel 
about  it  to-morrow  or  next  day.  Is  that  satis 
factory?" 

"Anything you  say,"  McKinnon  answered. 

The  other  man  rose  heavily  to  his  feet, 
crossed  slowly  to  the  door,  and  turned  back  to 
stare  absently  about  the  crowded  little  room. 

"You'll  be  with  us  all  right,"  he  said,  with 
out  emotion. 

But  instead  of  going  below,  after  bidding  the 
operator  good-night  in  his  suave  and  deep- 
throated  guttural,  he  slowly  and  meditatively 
paced  the  bridge-deck,  idly  blinking  up  at  the 
stars  above  the  mastheads  and  out  over  the  rail 
at  the  dark  sea  on  either  side  of  them. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE 

IT  was  two  days  later  that  the  Laminian 
swung  in  toward  the  coast  of  Locombia.  Her 
rust-stained  bow,  under  the  lash  of  the  sweep 
ing  trade-wind,  lifted  and  dipped  again  in  a 
sapphire-coloured  sea  streaked  with  yellow 
wind-rows  of  drift-weed.  The  hot  sun  blistered 
the  painted  woodwork;  the  air  was  like  a  back- 
draft  from  an  opened  furnace. 

The  wind  freshened,  as  the  day  wore  away, 
whipping  spray  along  the  bleached  decks  and 
humming  through  the  tight-strung  aerials  at  the 
masthead.  It  brought  with  it  occasional  driv 
ing  showers  that  pelted  on  the  sodden  canvas 
and  steaming  woodwork. 

McKinnon,  in  his  cabin,  laboured  in  vain  over 
his  tuning  box  and  responder.  He  had  held 
Ganley  off  for  another  few  hours,  hoping 
against  hope  that  something  might  still  be 
picked  up.  The  gun-runner  had  not  accepted 
this  enforced  delay  with  a  good  grace;  there 

211 


212      THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE 

could  be  little  more  hope  for  quibbles  or  equivo 
cations  in  that  quarter. 

McKinnon,  stooping  to  overlook  his  dynamo, 
felt  that  he  had  at  last  reached  the  end  of  his 
rope.  The  Princeton  was  still  beyond  his  call. 

When  he  stood  up  again  he  mopped  his  face 
with  a  handkerchief,  and  irritably  summoned 
a  steward  and  for  the  second  time  sent  down 
to  the  engine-room  asking  how  he  was  expected 
to  operate  his  coils  on  less  than  a  hundred  volts. 

Then  he  once  more  adjusted  his  helmet-re 
ceiver  and  sat  back  and  sighed,  letting  the  hot 
current  from  his  electric  fan  play  on  his  face. 
But  the  tropical  air  seemed  devitalised,  bereft 
of  its  oxygen.  He  was  dimly  conscious  of  the 
passage  of  time,  of  the  muffled  and  monotonous 
drone  of  the  fan,  of  the  casual  ship-noises  far 
below  deck.  But  nothing  came  to  stir  his  re- 
sponder  into  life.  There  was  not  a  ship  or  sta 
tion  to  be  picked  up.  The  day  had  deepened 
into  evening,  and  nothing  had  come  to  help  him 
solve  his  problem. 

Already,  on  the  ship's  bridge,  the  navigating 
officer  in  soiled  duck  had  picked  up  the  Toajiras 
Light.  Behind  that  light  lay  the  flat  and  mias- 
mal  Locombian  coast.  And  somewhere,  still 
farther  to  the  southwest,  armies  were  being  ar 
rayed  against  each  other.  Somewhere,  across 
the  deepening  night,  men  were  ambushing  and 


THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE      213 

shooting.  Peons  dragged  out  of  peaceful  val 
leys,  "volunteers*'  commandeered  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet,  unattached  citizens  forcibly 
seized  in  cafes  and  the  open  streets,  were  being 
set  at  one  another's  throats,  because  it  suited 
the  plans  of  a  placid-eyed  and  lethargic  con 
spirator  who  wrung  power  and  money  out  of 
the  optimism  of  a  deluded  and  childlike  people. 

McKinnon,  as  he  sat  in  his  hot  and  stifling 
station,  wondered  if  his  mission  had  failed.  He 
asked  himself  if  he  had  not  been  outmaneu- 
vered,  from  the  first. 

The  weight  of  this  seeming  failure  grew 
heavier  and  heavier  on  his  spirit.  He  felt  as 
though  every  dead  body  in  that  Locombian  war 
fare  was  pressing  down  on  him,  as  though  the 
blood  from  every  gunshot  wound  was  submerg 
ing  him  in  a  river  of  self-hate. 

He  turned  back  to  his  apparatus,  sullenly, 
wearily,  desperately.  But  call  and  tune  and  call 
again  as  he  might,  he  could  get  nothing.  He 
wondered  if,  by  any  chance,  Duran  and  his  gov 
ernment  were  already  a  thing  of  the  past;  if 
the  Laminian  and  all  she  carried  had  come  too 
late;  if  Guariqui  had  already  fallen.  Then  he 
mopped  his  face  again,  and  told  himself  that 
the  heat  had  got  on  his  nerves.  Any  one,  when 
tired  and  half-cooked,  he  muttered,  would  feel 
dispirited. 


214     THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE 

He  pulled  himself  together,  with  an  effort, 
and  coerced  his  attention  on  the  instruments  be 
fore  him.  The  thing  was  not  over,  he  doggedly 
maintained;  he  still  had  his  fighting-chance. 

His  watch  above  the  responder  was  inter 
rupted  by  a  peremptory  rattle  of  his  cabin 
door.  He  was,  at  Alicia's  suggestion,  keeping 
his  wireless  station  under  lock  and  key,  though 
it  had  long  since  slipped  his  mind  that  he  had 
locked  himself  in.  He  opened  his  door,  guar 
dedly,  and  was  both  relieved  and  disconcerted 
to  see  the  figure  of  Captain  Yandel  swaying 
there. 

"What 're  you  picking  up?"  demanded  the 
captain,  thickly.  His  face  was  an  almost  apo 
plectic  red,  and  a  heavy  odour  of  brandy  drifted 
into  the  close  little  cabin.  Yet  the  squat,  wide- 
shouldered  figure  stood  erect  and  steady  enough 
on  the  ludicrously  short  and  wide-planted  legs. 
McKinnon  wondered  how  many  years  he  would 
last,  in  such  a  climate.  Then  he  marvelled  at 
the  thought  of  how  slowly  men  were  able  to 
kill  themselves;  the  sheer  pertinacity  of  life 
amazed  him,  as  he  peered  up  at  the  hulk  before 
him,  and  in  some  way  knew  that  it  would  drag 
on  and  on  through  its  sottish  years,  that  the 
overheated  blood  and  the  hardening  arteries 
and  the  long-abused  body  would  clamour  for 


,THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE      215 

their  own,  would  fight  for  life  and  movement, 
to  the  bitter  end. 

"I  haven't  picked  up  anything,"  answered 
the  thoughtful-eyed  man  at  the  operating-table. 
"And  I've  been  hugging  this  coherer  for  four 
hours." 

"Can't  you  get  that  dam'ed  Puerto  Locom- 
bia  operator?" 

"I  can  keep  calling." 

"Well,  keep  at  him  till  he  answers.  I  want 
to  know  what  they're  doin'  with  that  tin-horn 
republic  o'  theirs.  And  as  soon  as  you  get  any 
thing  let  me  know." 

He  turned  away,  looked  up  at  the  night, 
swayed  a  little,  slowly  regained  his  equilibrium, 
and  wandered  forward  to  the  darkness  of  the 
bridge. 

McKinnon's  hand  went  out  obediently  to  the 
switch,  his  dynamo  purred  and  hummed,  and  he 
caught  up  the  lever-handle  of  his  key.  The 
great  blue  spark  exploded  from  the  coils  and 
leaped  and  hissed  from  knob  to  knob  across  the 
spark-gap.  "Pt-Ba,"  "Pt-Ba,"  he  called,  per 
functorily. 

He  looked  up  to  see  the  restless  captain  back 
at  his  door  again,  stupidly  watching  his 
spark.  The  operator  knew  he  was  calling  a 
dead  station,  but  he  played  out  his  part. 

"I  might  do  something,  if  they'd  give  me  a 


216      .THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE 

little  more  power  from  that  engine-room,"  he 
said,  by  way  of  excuse. 

"Then  you'll  get  your  power,"  declared  the 
autocrat  of  his  little  world.  "You'll  get  power 
enough,  if  that's  all  that's  wrong,"  he  repeated, 
as  he  made  his  way  once  more  toward  the 
bridge. 

McKinnon  switched  off  and  waited  until  Cap 
tain  Yandel's  order  had  time  to  be  acted  on. 
Then  he  tested  his  spark  again.  The  eruption, 
as  the  contact-points  of  his  despatching-key 
came  together,  seemed  to  stab  and  tear  a  sud 
den  hole  in  the  silence.  It  roared  and  cannon 
aded  out  through  the  little  cabin,  until  the  night 
echoed  with  it ;  it  spit  and  hissed  from  the  mast 
heads,  aggressively,  incisively,  as  he  continued 
to  move  the  contact-lever  up  and  down,  slow  and 
strong,  and  sent  his  call  arrowing  out  through 
the  darkness:  "Pt-Ba,"  "Pt-Ba."  But  inter 
polated  between  each  call  for  "Puerto  Locom- 
bia"  was  an  equally  impatient  and  anxious 
Morse  prayer  for  "Cruiser  Princeton — Cruiser 
Princeton.'' 

"That's  almost  enough  to  wake  the  dead," 
he  mentally  assured  himself  as  he  adjusted  his 
"set,"  switched  off,  and  pressed  the  phones 
close  in  to  his  ears. 

Through  these  phones,  as  he  listened,  came  a 
sound  as  feeble  and  minute  as  the  tick  of  that 


THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE      217 

insect  known  as  a  death-watch.  His  first 
thought  was  that  it  could  be  nothing  more  than 
a  mere  ''echo-signal,"  from  too  high  intensity. 
His  second  thought  convinced  him  that  this  was 
out  of  the  question;  too  long  a  time  had  elapsed 
between  his  own  send  and  those  coherent  dots 
and  dashes  creeping  into  his  startled  ear.  It 
was  an  outside  message,  a  call  being  intercepted 
by  his  antennae.  Yet  the  signal  that  he  was 
reading  was  the  same  as  his  own  "Pt-Ba," 
"Pt-Ba." 

McKinnon's  hand  once  more  darted  out  to  his 
switch,  and  his  face  was  alert  and  changing  with 
his  changing  thought  as  he  caught  up  his  key- 
lever.  And  again  the  blue  spark  exploded 
across  the  spark-gap,  and  the  cabin  walls  threw 
back  the  lightning-like  flash  and  pulse  of  the 
illumination.  Already  he  had  forgotten  the 
heat,  the  depressing  sense  of  frustration,  the 
brooding  consciousness  of  impending  defeat 
that  had  weighed  upon  him.  Switching  off,  he 
sat  with  inclined  head,  intently,  raptly  listening. 

He  was  startled  to  feel  a  huge  and  ape-like 
hand  suddenly  take  hold  of  his  arm. 

"What 're  you  getting?"  demanded  the  owner 
of  the  arm. 

It  was  Ganley  standing  there  close  beside 
him.  His  dark  face,  wet  with  perspiration, 
shone  in  the  strong  side-light  as  though  it  had 


218      THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE 

been  oiled.  His  peering  eyes  showed  in  two  thin 
crescents  of  white,  out  of  the  heavy  shadow 
made  by  the  projecting  eye-bones. 

"Nothing,"  was  McKinnon's  sharp  retort. 
"I'm  only  trying  to- get  something." 

He  shook  the  detaining  hand  from  his  arm, 
and  gave  all  his  attention  to  his  call.  But  the 
intruder  was  not  to  be  so  easily  overridden. 

"Are  you  with  us?"  he  demanded,  preg 
nantly,  as  the  preoccupied  operator  again 
caught  up  the  phone-set. 

"Yes — yes,  I'm  with  you,"  cried  the  man, 
stooping  over  the  responder.  "But  I'm  trying 
to  operate!" 

"What  in  hell  does  this  operating  count  if 
you're  with  us?"  persisted  the  placid-toned 
Ganley,  determined,  apparently,  on  a  policy  of 
obstruction. 

"It's  this  call  that's  going  to  save  both  our 
scalps,"  was  the  abstracted  yet  hurried  retort. 

"How  save  my  scalp?"  demanded  Ganley, 
with  a  detaining  hand  on  the  other's  fore-arm. 

The  stooping  McKinnon  straightened  up  and 
wheeled  on  him,  every  nerve  ready  to  snap  like 
an  overstrained  bowstring. 

"  I  Ve  got  to  catch  this  call !  Don 't  talk — keep 
away  from  me!n 

Ganley  looked  at  him  heavily.  He  did  not 
speak.  But  a  third  voice  thundered  abruptly 


THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE       219 

and  unexpectedly  through  the  hot  cabin.  It  was 
Captain  Yandel's,  belligerent,  stentorian,  bull- 
like. 

"Come  out  o'  that  station!" 

The  man  addressed  did  not  move. 

"Come  out  o'  there  and  stop  interferin'  with 
my  men!" 

Ganley  turned  his  head  slowly  about  and 
gazed  at  the  ship's  master.  But  otherwise  he 
showed  no  sign  of  having  heard. 

"Are  you  comin'  out  o'  there?"  demanded 
that  apoplectic-faced  officer,  in  a  roar  of 
inebriate  and  affronted  authority.  There  was 
no  evading  his  blind  and  unreasoning  anger. 
Ganley  shrugged  a  massive  shoulder. 

"Since  you  ask  me  so  politely,  I  s'pose  so," 
he  conceded,  with  his  mirthless  laugh.  Then  he 
placidly  turned  about  and  stepped  to  the  door 
way,  and  from  the  doorway  to  the  open  deck. 

"Now  you  get  below-decks  where  you  be 
long!" 

The  gaze  of  the  two  men  met  and  locked;  it 
was  like  the  clash  and  lock  of  elk-antlers. 

In  that  interlocked  gaze  lay  animal-like  chal 
lenge  and  counter-challenge,  threat  and  counter- 
threat,  malignant  fortitude  and  an  even  more 
malignant  defiance. 

Ganley,  with  a  lip-curl  of  contempt,  thrust 


220      THE  COAST  OF  MISCHANCE 

his  hands  slowly  down  in  his  pockets,  and  then 
turned  on  his  heel  and  went  below. 

"What 're  you  gettin'?"  Captain  Yandel  de 
manded  of  the  man  chapleted  with  the  shining 
band  of  steel  ending  in  two  small  black  knobs. 

"They  don't  answer!"  cried  McKinnon,  with 
a  gasp  of  exasperation. 

"Don't  answer?"  demanded  the  captain. 

"No,  I've  lost  them!"  was  the  bitter  cry  of 
the  man  bent  over  his  coherer. 

The  ship's  master's  blasphemy  was  both  pro 
longed  and  voluble. 

"And  you  ain't  goin'  to  get  'em?" 

"I've  lost  them,"  was  the  repeated  and  al 
most  hopeless  answer.  The  morose-eyed  officer 
peered  at  the  operator's  drawn  and  sweat- 
stained  face. 

"You're  makin'  a  devil  of  a  nice  mess  o'  this 
business,  between  you!"  he  declared,  with  an 
other  oath  of  disgust. 

The  wireless-operator  only  stared  at  his  in 
struments,  silently,  challengingly,  combatively. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL 

IT  was  two  hours  later  that  a  great  wide- 
shouldered  figure  in  white  duck  passed  quietly 
along  the  empty  bridge-deck.  This  ghost-like 
figure  cautiously  tried  the  door  of  the  wireless 
room,  but  found  it  securely  locked.  Then  it 
crept  about  to  the  half -open  shutter  and  stood 
there,  minute  after  minute,  in  an  attitude  of  lis 
tening.  Beyond  the  unbroken  drone  of  the  elec 
tric  fan  there  was  nothing  to  be  heard  from 
within.  And  the  cabin  itself  was  in  utter  dark 
ness. 

The  man  at  the  window  waited  for  still  an 
other  space  of  time,  peering  back  and  forth 
along  the  deck  to  make  sure  that  his  movements 
were  unobserved.  Then  he  raised  a  cautious 
arm  and  slid  the  barred  shutter  farther  along  its 
groove. 

The  damp  wood  rasped  and  stuttered  a  little, 
for  all  his  caution,  as  he  pushed  it,  and  he  drew 
quickly  back  from  the  window.  For  he  had 
heard  the  sound  of  a  sudden  half-articulate 

Ml 


222        THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL 

sigh,  followed  by  the  stir  of  a  body  moving  im 
patiently  on  a  mattress,  and  then  the  quick  pad 
of  bare  feet  crossing  the  cabin  floor. 

It  was  McKinnon,  startled  out  of  Ms  sleep 
of  utter  weariness  by  the  momentary  sound  of 
the  moving  shutter. 

He  turned  on  the  single-globed,  green-shaded 
electric  that  swung  low  over  his  operating-table. 
He  stood  there  in  his  crumpled  madras  pajamas, 
looking  dazedly  and  a  little  sleepily  about  the 
narrow  room. 

Then,  automatically,  from  sheer  force  of 
habit,  he  adjusted  his  "set"  over  his  head, 
swung  a  sleepy  hand  out  to  his  tuner-levers, 
pressed  the  phones  close  over  his  ears,  and  lis 
tened. 

He  grew  tired  of  standing  there,  half-lean 
ing  against  the  sharp  table-edge,  as  he  listened, 
for  the  responder  had  given  no  sign  of  life.  So 
he  dropped  into  the  chair  before  his  instrument, 
and  sat  there,  yawning  sleepily,  with  ludi 
crously  wandering  eyes,  his  elbows  spread  wide 
and  resting  on  the  edge  of  the  unpainted  pine 
board. 

The  man  at  the  shuttered  window  could  see 
his  face,  half  in  the  strong  light  of  the  shaded 
electric  globe.  He  could  see  the  bony  hand  move 
back  and  forth  to  the  tuner  and  shift  and  re- 
shift  the  buttons  in  the  slotted  box-top  columned 


THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL        223 

with  numerals.  He  could  hear  the  operator's 
low  mumble  of  disappointment  as  he  lifted  'the 
"set"  from  his  head,  disarranging  more  than 
ever  his  already  tousled  hair.  Then  the  lis 
tener  drew  closer,  for  a  sudden  little  sound, 
half-grunt,  half-cry,  had  broken  from  McKin- 
non's  lips. 

The  phones  were  once  more  held  down  hard 
on  his  ears  as  he  stooped  forward,  this  time 
wide-awake. 

The  coherer  had  stirred  and  quivered  into 
life.  A  faint  and  febrile  little  shower  of  ticks 
was  pounding  minutely  against  his  ear-drums. 
Some  one  was  "sending." 

He  reached  out  and  drew  up  the  form-pad 
before  him  as  he  listened.  The  call  was  com 
ing  clearly  now,  repeated  again  and  again. 
"Pt-Ba,"  "Pt-Ba,"  came  the  query  through  the 
night.  McKinnon,  as  he  listened  and  "tuned 
up"  to  the  other  man's  tensity,  could  recog 
nise  the  nature  of  the  "send"  as  one  would 
recognise  the  accent  of  a  Westerner  in  Boston 
or  a  Londoner  in  Dublin.  It  was  the  unmis 
takable  yet  undefinable  inflection  and  cadence 
of  a  navy  man.  It  was  an  American  battle 
ship  of  some  sort,  calling  Puerto  Locombia. 

McKinnon  was  on  his  feet  again,  tingling 
with  excitement.  He  threw  down  his  switch- 


224        THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL 

lever,  caught  up  his  key,  and  sent  the  answer 
ing  call  rattling  and  exploding  across  his  spark- 
gap,  loud  above  the  purr  of  the  wakened 
dynamo. 

Then  he  turned  again  to  his  phones  and  lis 
tened.  They  had  not  tuned  up  to  him;  they 
had  not  picked  him  up.  For  still  again  came 
the  call  "Pt-Ba,"  "Pt-Ba."  It  was  out  of  the 
hours  for  sending.  The  engine-room  had  dimin 
ished  his  power,  leaving  him  without  voltage 
enough  to  make  a  " splash"  that  would  reach 
the  war-ship. 

But  his  hand  went  out  to  his  form-pad  and 
he  bent  over  it,  busy  with  his  transcription,  as 
the  noise  pulsing  and  creeping  in  through  his 
receivers  translated  itself  into  intelligibility. 

This  is  cruiser  Princeton  lying  off  harbor  of  TorreblancS. 
Send  word  of  Guariqui  situation.  Mobile  despatch  two 
days  ago  reports  protection  wanted  for  American  interests. 
Please  instruct  our  consul  send  immediate  advice. 

LIEUTENANT  VERDU. 

Then  came  a  minute  or  two  of  silence,  and 
then  the  call  again,  followed  by  the  repeated 
message : 

PT-BA:  Are  you  asleep?  Why  does  Princeton  get  no 
answer? 

LIEUTENANT  VBRDU. 


THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL         225 

And  still  again  came  the  silence,  and  still 
again  the  call,  indignant,  peremptory,  to  the  ap 
preciatively  trained  ear  as  eloquent  of  impa 
tience  in  its  microphonic  dots  and  dashes  as  the 
human  voice  itself  could  be. 

Automatically,  McKinnon  wrote  out  the  de 
spatches,  word  for  word,  as  a  matter  of  record. 

His  chance  had  come  at  last:  all  he  now 
needed  was  power.  It  would  take  him  but  a 
minute  to  slip  down  to  the  engine-room,  he  con 
cluded,  as  he  threw  on  a  striped  green  bath 
robe  with  a  hood  like  a  monk's  cowl.  Then 
he  could  see  for  himself  that  they  were  sling 
ing  the  right  voltage  up  to  him. 

He  sprang  for  the  cabin  door,  unlocked  it, 
and  swung  it  open.  As  he  leaped  out  across  the 
door-sill  he  ran  head-on  into  the  arms  of  Ganley. 

He  scarcely  looked  up.  His  one  thought  was 
to  reach  that  engine-room  and  to  reach  it  with 
out  loss  of  time.  He  accepted  the  momentary 
obstruction  as  nothing  more  than  a  clumsy  sea 
man  who  had  scarcely  been  given  time  to  step 
aside.  He  struggled  to  edge  about  the  unyield 
ing  bulk,  swinging  to  one  side  with  a  preoccu 
pied  half-growl  of  impatience.  It  was  not  until 
he  found  himself  seized  and  almost  carried  back 
into  his  cabin  that  he  saw  either  the  meaning 
or  the  menace  of  the  situation. 

' '  Is  that  message  for  me  ? "  demanded  Ganley, 


226        THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL 

his  huge  figure  blocking  the  doorway,  his  glance 
on  the  top  sheet  of  the  form-pad. 

"No!"  was  the  quick  retort. 

Ganley  reached  back  and  swung  the  cabin 
door  shut. 

"I'd  like  to  glance  over  that  message,"  sug 
gested  the  man  by  the  door.  His  tone  was  soft 
and  purring,  but  there  was  a  suggestion  of 
claws  behind  the  velvet. 

"This  is  only  ship's  business,"  explained 
McKinnon,  in  an  effort  at  appeasement.  Yet  he 
quietly  ripped  the  written  sheet  from  the  pad, 
his  spirit  of  latent  obduracy  now  well  stirred 
into  life. 

"Could  I  look  over  that  message?"  repeated 
Ganley,  as  quietly  as  before. 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  threat  in  his 
voice.  McKinnon,  eying  him,  saw  his  hand  drop 
down  to  his  side.  The  movement  was  quick  and 
casual.  But  when  the  hand  was  raised  again 
it  held  a  revolver,  a  heavy,  forty-four  caliber 
thing  of  blue  gun-metal,  with  a  sawed-off  barrel. 
The  worn  corners  of  the  metal  glimmered  dis 
agreeably,  in  baleful  little  touches  of  high-light, 
as  Ganley  held  the  barrel  low,  close  in  against 
the  other  man's  startled  body. 

"What's  this  for?"  asked  McKinnon,  his 
skirmishing  thought  frenziedly  exploring  the 


THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL        227 

future,  seeking  for  his  next  move  and  his  rea 
sons  for  it. 

"It's  for  you!"  was  the  quiet  yet  sinister 
answer. 

"But  what's  the  good  of  fool  by-play  like 
this!"  protested  the  other,  still  wondering 
where  his  chance  was  to  come  in. 

"Could  I  look  over  that  message?"  reiterated 
Ganley,  with  no  trace  of  excitement  in  his  voice. 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met;  they  studied 
each  other  for  a  second  or  two  of  unbroken 
silence.  Then  the  operator  flung  the  sheet  on 
the  pine  table  before  the  other  man.  The  situa 
tion  allowed  of  no  further  equivocation. 

"Read  it,  of  course — if  you  want  to!" 

Ganley  pounced  on  it,  like  a  cat  on  a  cor 
nered  mouse.  He  backed  away  to  the  door,  but 
kept  his  revolver  still  poised  in  front  of  him 
while  he  read. 

McKinnon,  as  he  watched  the  gun-runner 
calmly  restore  the  sheet  of  paper  to  his  table, 
saw  the  chance  he  had  at  first  hoped  for  slip 
past  him. 

"Don't  you  think  we'd  better  kill  that  mes 
sage?"  Ganley  suggested  with  a  pregnant 
movement  of  his  right  hand. 

"Why?"  asked  McKinnon.  He  was  still  try 
ing  to  think,  to  gain  time. 

"You  know  why,"  retorted  the  gun-runner. 


228        THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL 

The  operator  looked  at  his  apparatus,  at  the 
sheet  of  writing,  and  at  the  opponent  who  had 
his  heel  on  the  neck  of  the  situation.  Then  he 
laughed  in  the  purely  passionless  way  of  the 
man  so  submerged  in  bitterness  that  fate  can 
bring  him  no  further  sting. 

"I  don't  see  why,"  he  answered,  still  clutch 
ing  about  for  some  forlorn  straw  of  deliverance. 

Ganley  came  a  step  or  two  nearer. 

"I'll  tell  you  why,"  he  said,  drawing  his 
gravely  interrogative  eyebrows  closer  to  his  flat 
nose-bridge. 

"I've  decided  to  be  up  here  on  this  deck  of 
yours  to-night — it's  going  to  be  more  comfor 
table  than  that  cabin  of  mine." 

"That'll  only  get  Yandel  down  on  you 
again!"  parried  the  other. 

"Mebbe  it  will — but  seem'  this  is  our  last 
night  at  sea,  I'm  going  to  enjoy  it.  And  the 
sound  of  any  message,  of  any  message  what 
ever,  going  out  on  those  wires  up  there,  is  going 
to  spoil  my  night!  Is  that  plain  enough  for 
you?" 

He  put  the  revolver  back  in  his  pocket  and 
waited.  The  operator  did  not  answer  him.  He 
knew  that  all  he  could  do  now  would  be  to  grope 
forward  slowly  and  blindly ;  he  could  only  crawl 
and  test  and  wait,  like  a  crustacean  with 


THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL        229 

foolishly  waving  feelers.  Ganley,  watching  him, 
backed  toward  the  door. 

"I'll  not  say  good-night,"  he  purred,  with 
mock  affability.  "If  you're  still  in  doubt  about 
anything,  you'll  find  me  on  the  deck  here  all 
right!" 

The  operator  watched  him  as  he  went  through 
the  door  and  as  he  wheeled  about  for  one  malig 
nant  and  admonitory  stare  into  the  cabin. 
From  the  depths  of  his  soul  McKinnon  resented 
that  smile. 

"You  own  this  ship1?"  he  asked,  with  a  quiet 
ness  that  might  have  disturbed  a  less  intrepid 
spirit.  From  that  hour  forward,  he  was  begin 
ning  to  feel,  dissimulation  would  be  useless. 

"No,  but  I'm  going  to,"  was  Ganley 's  placid 
retort.  He  had  taken  out  one  of  his  evil-look 
ing  thick,  black  cigars,  and  was  proceeding  to 
light  it  with  the  utmost  leisure. 

"And  this  is  your  apparatus?" 

"And  my  particular  little  corner  of  the 
earth,"  responded  Ganley,  with  the  studiously 
voluptuous  satisfaction  of  the  idealist  who  has 
achieved  his  dream. 

McKinnon 's  eyes  narrowed.  The  taste  of 
being  beaten  at  the  only  game  he  knew  how  to 
play  was  growing  very  bitter  in  his  mouth. 

"And  supposing  I  can't  kill  this  message?" 
he  ventured.  Had  the  words  not  been  in  the 


230        THE  INTERCEPTED  CALL 

form  of  an  interrogation,  they  might  have  been 
claimed  to  carry  the  weight  of  an  ultimatum. 

The  huge,  red-faced  figure  with  the  black 
cigar  leaned  in  through  the  narrow  doorway. 

"I  think  you  will,  though,"  was  the  vaguely 
menacing  retort. 

"And  why?" 

Ganley  laughed  a  little. 

"Bo  you  s'pose  I'm  going  to  let  a  couple  of 
children  like  you" — and  he  threw  a  world  of 
contempt  into  the  word  "children"  as  he  ut 
tered  it — "step  in  and  try  to  stop  my  steam 
roller?" 

"You  haven't  told  me  why?"  mildly  inquired 
McKinnon,  more  and  more  becoming  master  of 
himself  again. 

"Well,  this  is  why,"  said  Ganley,  and  he 
leaned  closer  in  through  the  door  as  he  spoke. 
"If  you  don't  choose  to  put  a  padlock  on  that 
wire,  I'm  going  to  put  a  padlock  on  you!" 

"Just  what  does  that  mean?"  was  the  quiet- 
voiced  inquiry. 

"It  means  that  you'll  kill  that  message,  or 
I'll  kill  you!" 

Then  Ganley  shut  the  cabin  door,  quietly,  and 
the  operator  was  left  standing  alone  in  his 
station. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  LISTENING  ALLY 

McKiNNON  was  aroused  by  a  quick,  light 
knock,  repeated  for  the  second  time.  He  took 
up  his  revolver,  slipped  it  into  the  loose  side 
pocket  of  his  bath-robe,  and  cautiously  opened 
the  door. 

It  was  Alicia  Boynton  who  stepped  in  as  he 
did  so,  pushing  him  sharply  back  and  closing 
the  door  even  more  sharply  after  her. 

Then  she  stood  confronting  him,  with  her 
finger  to  her  lips,  as  a  sign  for  silence.  McKin- 
non  had  long  since  learned  that  great  moments 
seldom  accord  with  their  setting,  that  catas 
trophic  seconds  are  often  wanting  in  cere 
monial.  His  first  impulse  had  been  to  warn  her 
hurriedly  away.  Yet  it  was  not  the  danger  that 
surrounded  her,  but  more  the  thought  of  his 
attire  and  its  simplicity  that  disturbed  and 
shocked  him.  His  embarrassment,  even  at  that 
moment,  was  greater  than  that  of  the  calm- eyed 
girl's. 

231 


232  THE  LISTENING  ALLY 

"What  is  it?"  asked  the  operator,  nettled  by 
the  intent  look  on  her  listening  face. 

She  made  a  second  sign  for  silence.  Then  she 
took  a  deep  breath  of  relief.  For  the  first  time 
he  noticed  that  she  was  fully  dressed,  as 
though  for  land  travel.  Something  about  her 
conveyed  to  him  the  passing  impression  that 
she  was  as  disconcertingly  well-groomed  as  she 
was  incongruously  at  ease.  Her  face,  under  the 
heavy  upturned  veil,  still  carried  its  inalienable 
touch  of  youth  and  vigour,  for  all  the  anxious 
shadow  about  the  eyes,  which  scarcely  betrayed 
the  fact  that  she  had  been  passing  troubled  and 
restless  nights. 

"I  have  heard  every  word,"  she  explained, 
in  her  low  and  intimate  tones. 

"Then  you  know  what  a  mess  we've  made  of 
it!" 

"I  was  leaning  on  the  rail,  under  the  bow 
of  the  life-boat,"  she  went  on,  disregarding  his 
exclamation.  ' ' I  waited  until  Ganley  passed  be 
hind  the  officers'  quarters.  He's  walking  up 
and  down,  smoking — and  waiting." 

"Did  he  see  you  come  in  here?"  asked 
McKinnon,  distressed  at  the  thought  that  here 
was  no  hospitality  and  no  harbour  he  could  ex 
tend  to  her,  feeling  that  this  fight  was  his  own, 
and  his  alone. 


THE  LISTENING  ALLY  233 

"No;  he  did  not  see  me.    It  was  so  Hot  be 
low — I  had  been  sitting  on  deck  for  an  hour." 
"You  must  go  below!" 

"But  this  means  so  much — to-night.  I  should 
be  here,  with  you!" 

The  calm  impersonality  of  her  declaration 
seemed  to  clear  the  air  like  a  thunder-clap. 
McKinnon  knew  but  one  moment  of  wavering. 

"I'd  rather  you  went  below,"  he  found  him 
self  saying,  at  the  very  moment  that  he  felt 
most  grateful  for  her  presence  there. 
"Why?"  she  asked. 

"There  is  going  to  be  trouble  here,"  he 
warned  her.  "You  must  go!" 

"I  couldn't,  now,"  she  answered,  very 
simply.  * '  And  we  are  wasting  time  in  talk  when 
every  moment  is  precious.  What  did  you  pick 
up  by  wireless?" 

"I  had  the  Princeton,  at  Torreblanca." 
"The  Princeton!    Then  we  are  wasting  time 
—we're  getting  farther  and  farther  away  from 
her  every  minute." 

"No,  that's  impossible  if  she's  actually  at 
Torreblanca.  We're  drawing  a  little  closer  to 
her,  if  anything.  The  danger  is  that  the  wire 
less-operator  will  leave  his  instrument  before  I 
can  call  again.  And  I've  got  to  have  power 
from  the  engine-room." 


234  THE  LISTENING  ALLY 

"Then  I'll  watch  your  key  while  you  go  be 
low,"  she  promptly  suggested. 

He  pondered  the  problem  for  a  moment  or 
two. 

"No,  that  would  only  be  exposing  yourself 
and  inviting  danger,"  she  amended.  "You 
must  give  me  the  message.  /  must  take  it  to  the 
engine-room. ' ' 

"I  couldn't  see  you  taking  a  risk  like  this," 
he  protested,  still  puzzling  over  the  problem. 

"There's  no  risk,  with  me,  because  no  one 
will  suspect.  And  you  must  stay  with  your 
key." 

He  lifted  his  revolver  from  his  bath-robe 
pocket,  after  another  moment  of  thought. 

"Then  I  want  you  to  take  this,"  he  told  her, 
holding  it  out  for  her.  He  noticed  her  puzzled 
glance  up  into  his  face,  and  then  her  quick  and 
unequivocal  movement  of  repudiation.  They 
both  knew,  as  they  stood  facing  each  other,  that 
the  ever-narrowing  apex  of  the  dilemma  was 
crowding  up  to  its  final  climacteric  point. 

"I  could  not  use  it,"  she  said,  shrinking  away 
from  the  glimmering  and  intimidating  little  in 
strument  of  death.  ' '  I  will  not  even  need  it. ' ' 

"Then  you  must  not  be  seen  leaving  this 
station." 

"But  what  will  you  do — when  the  power 
comes?"  she  asked. 


THE  LISTENING  ALLY  235 

"7'm  going  to  send,"  was  his  reply.  "I'll 
fight  it  out  with  him.  Ganley  can't  dictate  to 
the  high  seas  of  the  world." 

Even  in  anarchy  and  outlawry,  he  felt,  there 
had  to  be  some  final  substratum  of  reason.  And 
Ganley  had  fallen  back  on  nothing  but  brute 
force. 

"Why  couldn't  I  go  to  the  captain?"  she 
pleaded. 

"That's  worse  than  useless.  He's  drunk. 
And  we'll  only  get  him  against  us,  for  he'd 
order  us  to  keep  out  of  the  mess.  He'd  fight  shy 
of  entangling  alliances.  He'd  forbid  me  to  send, 
for  he's  got  his  ship  to  clear  from  that  port." 

"But  the  Princeton  would  be  Ms  protection, 
as  well  as  ours." 

"That's  true — but  the  man's  brain  is  too 
brandy-soaked  to  understand  such  a  situation. 
We've  got  to  act  ourselves,  and  on  our  own 
hook." 

He  told  her,  briefly,  the  way  to  the  engine- 
room.  Then  he  switched  off  his  light,  unlocked 
his  door,  and  glanced  out  to  see  that  the  way 
was  clear. 

Yet  he  waited  at  that  open  door  with  his  re 
volver  in  his  hand,  every  moment  of  the  time 
until  she  had  crossed  to  the  stair-head,  until  she 
had  passed  quietly  down  the  brass-plated  steps, 


236  THE  LISTENING  ALLY 

until  he  had  made  quite  sure  that  she  was  below- 
stajrs. 

Then  he  locked  himself  in  again,  and  made  a 
mad  and  desperate  dash  into  his  clothes.  Then 
he  unlimbered  his  revolver,  looked  over  its 
chambers,  brought  out  his  box  of  cartridges, 
and  saw  that  every  cartridge  was  in  place.  He 
had,  by  this  time,  more  or  less  made  up  his  mind 
as  to  his  line  of  procedure. 

He  had  his  natural  rights,  and  they  were 
going  to  be  respected. .  There  would  be  no  more 
free-and-easy  invasion  of  his  station,  no  more 
buccaneer's  airy  threats  of  force.  He  had  been 
made  a  football  of  for  too  long:  he  had  been 
mauled  and  bullied  and  browbeaten  like  a  street- 
curb  panhandler.  He  was  an  official,  with  offi 
cial  duties  to  perform.  The  full  sense  of  his  re 
sponsibility  came  home  to  him,  as  he  took 
thought  of  the  vast  and  ponderous  machinery 
behind  him,  of  the  reservecT  and  gigantic  forces 
of  which  he  was  a  mere  out-runner.  The  time 
had  come  to  act,  and  he  was  going  to  act.  And 
at  the  first  movement  of  aggression  or  inter 
ference  from  Ganley,  he  would  shoot — and  he 
had  long  since  learned  to  pride  himself  on  the 
fact  that  when  he  shot  he  seldom  wasted 
powder. 

As  he  waited  for  the  engine-room's  response 
to  his  dynamo  he  busied  himself  LQ  barricading 


THE  LISTENING  ALLY  237 

the  cabin-window  with  a  shelf-board  wrenched 
from  his  closet,  and  in  drawing  out  his  trunk 
and  standing  it  on  end,  to  be  shoved  against  the 
locked  door  as  a  further  re-enforcement  against 
attack  from  outside.  The  wall-plates  them 
selves,  he  knew,  could  never  be  penetrated  by  a 
bullet.  It  was  the  wooden-shuttered  window 
and  the  door  alone  that  needed  defense. 

No  touch  of  fear  rested  on  McKinnon  as  he 
worked  out  his  plan,  point  by  point ;  it  was  more 
perplexity  as  to  the  outcome  of  the  movement, 
touched  with  wonder  as  to  whether  of  not  any 
contingency  had  been  overlooked.  He  was  glad 
of  action,  of  something  against  which  to  direct 
his  stored-up  nervous  energy.  He  regretted, 
vaguely,  that  Alicia  had  in  any  way  been 
dragged  into  this  trial  by  fire,  that  she  had  in 
any  way  been  identified  with  a  combat  so  sor 
did  and  demeaning.  Yet  he  felt,  in  some  way, 
that  this  final  combat  was  to  subject  her  to  the 
acid-test  of  a  final  integrity.  It  would  be  un 
alloyed  purity  of  purpose,  he  argued,  that  would 
keep  her  at  his  side  during  such  an  ordeal.  He 
almost  gloried  in  the  thought  that  such  an  un 
equivocal  and  authentic  seal  was  to  be  put  on  a 
relationship  that  had  once  seemed  little  more 
than  fortuitous. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW 


N,  ill  at  ease,  tested  his  coils  and 
wondered  if  Alicia  had  indeed  succeeded  in 
reaching  the  engine-room.  Then  he  wondered 
if  she  were  once  more  safely  back  in  her  cabin. 
Then  all  thought  passed  away  from  him,  for  the 
light  patter  of  hurried  footsteps,  followed  by 
an  oath  and  an  answering  cry  of  alarm,  sounded 
from  outside  his  door. 

"You  keep  out  o'  here!" 

It  was  Ganley's  voice,  short  and  brusk.  The 
knob  of  the  locked  door  twisted  and  moved. 
The  new-comer,  whoever  it  was,  must  have 
caught  hold  of  this  knob  from  the  outside.  It 
was  equally  plain,  from  the  sound  of  the  sudden 
gasp  and  the  scuffle  that  followed,  that  Ganley 
had  flung  this  intercepted  visitor  aside  from  the 
door.  It  was  then,  and  only  then,  that  the  lis 
tening  operator  realised  who  that  new-comer 
must  be. 

McKinnon  switched  out  his  light  before  he 

238 


THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW        239 

opened  the  door,  for  he  wanted  every  chance. 

The  first  message  that  flashed  to  his  brain 
was  that  it  was  very  dark  outside.  The  second 
was  that  a  great  malletlike  hand  had  descended 
unexpectedly  on  his  own,  out  of  this  darkness, 
and  had  sent  his  revolver  rattling  across  the 
boards  of  the  cabin  floor.  His  next  was  the 
knowledge  of  clinching  and  writhing  and  strug 
gling  with  a  desperately  fighting  and  heaving 
hulk  that  for  a  moment  bore  him  back  over  his 
door-sill. 

Then  came  a  brief  and  bitter  battle  for  what 
seemed  to  be  a  short-barreled,  heavy-butted  re 
volver  in  one  of  the  malletlike  hands.  The  re 
volver  fell  away  from  them  both  in  the  hot  and 
stifling  blackness  of  the  cabin,  but  still  they 
clawed  and  panted  and  writhed  from  side  to 
side. 

' '  The  lights ! ' '  cried  the  warning  girl  through 
the  darkness. 

Then  came  the  sound  of  the  door  slammed 
shut,  and  the  girl  again  crying  to  McKinnon  to 
turn  on  the  light.  He  dropped  low  and  twisted 
sharply,  tearing  himself  loose  from  the  apelike 
arms. 

"The  light— turn  on  the  light !"  still  cried  the 
helpless  girl,  as  though  apprehensive  of  some 
danger  he  could  not  fathom. 

McKinnon,  still  panting  and  shaking,  sprang 


240        THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW 

for  his  light-switch  and  snapped  on  the  current. 
The  blank  darkness  puffed  into  a  sudden 
picture. 

It  showed  in  sparkling  high -lights  on  the 
wireless  apparatus.  It  revealed  the  huddled 
figure  of  Ganley  crouching  back  against  the 
sleeping-berth.  It  showed  the  white-faced  and 
terrified  woman  close  by  the  cabin  door.  But 
that  was  all;  for  in  the  next  second  the  light 
went  out  again,  and  the  cabin  was  once  more 
blanketed  in  utter  darkness. 

But  McKinnon,  in  that  brief  heart-throb  of 
illumination,  had  caught  and  fixed  in  his  mind's 
eye  the  position  of  his  fallen  revolver. 

He  was  already  on  his  hands  and  knees,  on 
the  floor,  like  a  cat,  crawling  to  the  farther  cor 
ner  of  his  dynamo  base. 

The  silence  seemed  something  material,  some 
thing  smothering  and  choking  the  three 
watchers.  No  one  knew  from  what  quarter  the 
bolt  would  strike.  McKinnon's  fingers  padded 
feverishly  yet  silently  about  the  floor,  explor 
ing  the  area  in  which  his  fallen  revolver  must 
lie.  He  thought  he  had  it ;  but  his  fingers  had 
closed  only  on  his  heavy,  canvas-covered  dumb 
bell.  He  padded  farther  into  the  blackness,  feel 
ing  along  the  dynamo  base,  wondering  if  it  were 
blood  or  only  sweat  that  was  trickling  down  his 
face. 


Then  he  gave  a  gasp  of  relief,  and  fell  back, 
slowly  drawing  himself  upright  as  he  retreated. 
He  had  recovered  the  revolver.  He  was  armed 
again ;  he  was  once  more  able  to  face  the  situa 
tion.  All  he  wanted  now  was  to  get  the  woman 
out  of  the  way,  out  of  the  cabin,  if  possible. 
It  was  not  going  to  be  the  sort  of  thing  she 
should  face.  It  was  too  late  for  half-measures. 
He  had  been  subjected  to  too  much;  he  had 
gone  through  too  much.  There  could  be  no  pos 
sibilities  of  further  compromise.  He  felt, 
dimly,  that  it  would  be  horrible ;  and  yet  he  felt 
that  it  had  to  be.  It  was  the  inevitable  and  final 
movement  toward  which  all  others  had  centred. 

He  backed  toward  the  door  until  his  groping 
hand  came  in  contact  with  its  knob.  Then  he 
caught  at  the  girl's  arm,  and  half-pushed,  half- 
dragged  her  toward  the  threshold,  with  a  whis 
pered  "Quick!" 

He  never  knew  whether  she  mistook  him  for 
Ganley.  or  whether  she  had  determined  to  re 
main  in  the  wireless  room,  even  against  his 
wishes.  But  she  did  not  go;  she  only  drew 
closer  in  to  the  wall  as  he  swung  the  door  open 
for  her. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  Ganley  must  have 
caught  some  dim  silhouette  of  his  figure  against 
the  less  opaque  blackness  of  the  open  deck. 
For,  as  the  door  circled  back  on  its  hinges,  Gan- 


242        THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW 

ley  swung  out  with  the  oak-framed  steamer- 
chair  which  he  had  already  caught  up  as  a 
weapon  of  defence. 

He  swung  it  short  and  quick,  with  a  forward 
and  elliptical  motion,  as  he  leaned  out  toward 
the  dimly  discerned  shadow.  He  heard  it  strike 
home;  he  heard  the  inarticulate  little  half- 
groan,  half-sigh,  as  the  stunned  man  crumpled 
down  over  the  door-sill. 

Ganley  also  heard  the  woman's  cry  of  terror, 
but  he  had  other  things  to  think  of,  other  fish 
to  fry.  He  pawed  frenziedly  about  the  cabin 
wall  until  he  found  the  switch,  and  turned  on 
the  light.  He  saw  McKinnon  still  sprawled 
half  over  his  door-sill;  he  saw  the  woman 
crouched  shield-like  over  his  body;  he  saw  the 
broken  steamer-chair  lying  on  the  cabin  floor. 
He  also  saw  the  heavy  iron  dumb-bell,  cov 
ered  with  rusted  canvas,  lying  at  his  feet,  not 
six  inches  from  the  dynamo  base.  The  terri 
fied  woman,  waiting  for  the  unknown  end, 
screamed  again,  and  still  again,  as  she  saw  him 
stoop  and  catch  it  up. 

It  was  not  until  the  great,  ape-like  arm  of  the 
gun-runner  brought  the  dumb-bell  crashing 
down  on  the  operating  table  that  she  realised 
her  mistake,  that  his  actual  intention  flashed 
through  her. 

His  fury  now  was  not  being  directed  toward 


THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW        243 

McKinnon.  It  was  the  instrument  that  he  was 
attacking.  For  the  heavy  iron  had  struck  with 
a  crashing  blow  on  the  delicately  poised  re- 
sponder,  with  its  fragile  and  mysterious  co 
herer,  crushing  the  flimsy  mechanism  of  glass 
and  wood  and  metal  as  a  mallet  might  crush 
a  bird's  egg.  She  felt  McKinnon 's  mumbling 
and  struggling  body  under  her;  but  she  gave  it 
no  thought.  She  only  saw  and  knew  that  this 
maddened  brute  was  beating  the  very  heart  out 
of  their  wireless  apparatus,  that  with  every 
blow  he  was  crushing  her  last  hopes.  She 
dragged  and  wrenched  McKinnon 's  revolver 
from  his  outstretched  hand.  But  before  she 
could  so  much  as  raise  it,  Ganley's  second  blow 
had  fallen.  This  time  it  fell  on  the  "key"  it 
self,  tearing  the  heavy  metal  lever  free  from  its 
binding-post.  He  had  just  caught  it  up  and 
flung  it  malignantly  through  the  open  cabin 
door,  whirling  out  into  the  sea,  when  she  fired. 

Her  first  shot  went  wild.  Before  she  had  time 
for  a  second,  Ganley  had  wheeled  about  and 
sprung  on  her  through  the  smoke-filled  air.  The 
huge  forty-four  Colt  seemed  too  heavy  for  her, 
beyond  her  strength,  for  she  had  no  second 
chance  of  using  it,  of  poising  and  adjusting  and 
aiming  it,  as  she  knew  she  should  have. 

But  she  caught  at  him  and  clung  to  him, 
blindly,  panting  and  screaming,  wondering  why 


no  one  came.  She  clung  and  clawed  at  him 
.like  a  cat,  until,  under  the  sheer  fury  of  that 
attack,  he  had  to  take  thought  to  defend  him 
self. 

He  fell  back  a  step  or  two,  and  the  movement 
sent  them  both  falling  over  the  broken  steamer- 
chair,  grotesquely,  foolishly.  But  not  for  a  mo 
ment  did  the  woman  cease  to  fight  and  scream. 
The  sound  of  it  all  seemed  to  sting  the  dazed 
McKinnon  into  a  consciousness  of  what  was 
going  on.  He  pawed  about  at  the  wall,  foolishly, 
for  support,  like  a  child  learning  to  walk;  he 
dragged  himself  up  to  a  sitting  posture.  But 
before  he  could  struggle  to  his  feet,  Captain 
Yandel  and  an  officer  from  the  bridge  were  in 
the  cabin.  He  saw  them  tearing  and  dragging 
at  Ganley's  great  limbs.  He  saw  the  white  and 
panting  and  disheveled  group  once  more  up 
right,  each  shaking  and  facing  the  other.  Then 
for  the  first  time  he  saw  his  dismantled  ap 
paratus. 

"What's  this  shooting  on  my  ship?"  roared 
the  captain. 

"That  cat  tried  to  kill  me!"  cried  Ganley, 
breathing  short  and  quick.  The  woman  strug 
gled  to  speak,  but  the  captain  gave  her  no  at 
tention.  His  eye  for  the  first  time  had  fallen 
on  McKinnon  leaning  against  the  cabin  wall, 


THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW        245 

with  a  little  trickle  of  blood  running  down  over 
one  swollen  cheek-bone. 

" What's  this  mean?"  he  demanded  of  his 
operator.  McKinnon's  senses  had  come  back  to 
him  by  this  time.  But  a  hopelessness  that  was 
almost  worse  than  death  itself  crept  through 
him. 

"He's  killed  our  wireless!  Our  wireless! 
Can't  you  see  he's  killed  it!" 

The  captain  !s  mental  state  was  such  that 
ideas  filtered  into  the  narrow  seat  of  his  con 
sciousness  but  slowly. 

"But  how?    And  why?" 

"The  responder!"  gasped  McKinnon. 

"But  what  of  it!" 

"Look  at  that  responder!"  cried  the  opera 
tor.  "It's  smashed.  And  the  key's  ruined! 
He's  cut  the  heart  out  of  our  apparatus!" 

"But  I  want  to  know  the  meaning  of  this  bar- 
•room  brawling  aboard  my  ship!"  still  thun 
dered  its  master. 

McKinnon  pointed  landward  savagely,  to 
ward  the  mangrove  swamps  and  mountains  of 
Locombia. 

"He's  been  trying  to  stop  my  sending.  He 
said  he'd  kill  me  if  I  sent." 

"That's  a  lie,"  retorted  Ganley.  "He's 
working  with  this  woman  to  juggle  messages 


246        THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW 

for  Duran!  They're  making  a  tool  of  you  and 
your  ship!" 

"That  shows  who's  making  a  tool  of  you!" 
cried  McKinnon,  pointing  with  his  lean  and 
shaking  finger  to  the  shattered  responder.  The 
ship  captain's  face  was  blotched  and  purplish 
and  horrible  to  look  at  by  this  time. 

"And  he's  killed  our  wireless?" 

"Look  at  it,"  answered  McKinnon. 

For  the  second  time  Captain  Yandel  looked. 
The  indignity,  the  enormity  of  the  thing  threw 
him  into  a  slowly  growing  ecstasy  of  sublimated 
rage. 

"And  who  fired  that  shot?"  he  demanded, 
with  an  almos't  voluptuous  delight  in  the  antic 
ipation  of  further  fuel  for  a  still  more  tower 
ing  fire. 

"I  did,"  said  the  white-faced  woman. 

"So  you  did,"  purred  the  captain,  slowly  re 
leasing  the  torrent.  "And  you're  a  nice  pair, 
the  two  of  you,  makin'  a  pot-house  of  my  ship ! 
You  half-breed  filibusters!  You  garlic-eating 
outlaws!  You  murderin',  slave-drivin'  tinhorn 
conspirators!" 

'  *  Stop ! ' '  cried  McKinnon. 

"Get  out  o'  here,  you  flimflam  beach 
combers!"  roared  on  the  unheeding  officer. 

"Get  out  o'  my  sight!  Get  down  to  your 
cabins  and  stay  there  until  you're  put  ashore 


THE  UNEXPECTED  BLOW        247 

at  Puerto  Locombia,  or  by  the  living  God,  if 
you  so  much  as  show  a  nose  outside  your  doors, 
I'll  clap  the  whole  lot  o'  you  into  irons  and  carry 
you  back  to  New  York  harbour!" 

It  meant  nothing  to  the  weak  and  bewildered 
girl,  after  what  she  had  gone  through,  but  it 
wounded  some  inner  and  ever  guarded  part  of 
her  to  see  that  McKinnon  made  no  effort  to  in 
tervene,  that  he  had  not  stepped  in  and  spoken 
for  her. 

It  was  not  until  his  steadying  glance  met  hers 
that  she  began  to  realise  he  was  holding  some 
thing  in  reserve,  that  he  had  his  reasons,  that 
he  was  plotting  out  some  new  line  of  procedure, 
and  with  this  discovery  came  a  renewed  memory 
of  the  hopelessness  of  their  position,  of  the 
dangers  confronting  them,  of  the  last  avenue  of 
delivery  that  had  been  cut  off  from  them.  The 
blasphemy  and  truculence  of  a  ship  captain 
meant  nothing  to  her;  the  satyr-like  exultation 
of  Ganley  meant  nothing.  She  knew  that  she 
had  been  fighting  for  life,  or  something  almost 
as  worthy  as  life.  And  she  knew  that  the  fight 
had  by  no  means  approached  its  end. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  PRIMORDIAL  HOUB 

IT  was  nothing  but  an  eye-glance  that  passed 
between  Alicia  and  McKinnon.  Yet  in  that 
fraction  of  a  second  intimacies  flashed  between 
them,  a  message  was  delivered  and  received, 
the  encouragement  of  one  lonely  soul  offering 
its  help  to  another  was  cryptically  given  and 
taken.  It  showed  her,  too,  that  judgment  and 
intelligence  were  once  more  on  their  throne 
with  her  ally,  that  he  was  no  longer  beating 
and  threshing  his  way  about  on  the  primordial 
sloughs  of  mere  assault  and  defence.  He  was  a 
thinking  being  once  more,  with  his  own  secret 
ends  and  his  own  secret  means  to  them.  And 
she  was  sick  of  the  primordial;  every  woman's 
fibre  in  her  body  was  offended  and  felt  degraded 
by  that  caveman's  hand-to-hand  fight  through 
which  she  had  passed. 

The  shaking-limbed  captain  had  swung  about 
on  McKinnon. 

"Have  you  picked  up  anything  about  fightin* 

248 


THE  PBIMOEDIAL  HOUR         249 

in  there?"  he  demanded,  with  his  guttural  run 
ning  obligate  of  mariner's  oaths.  "Or  have 
you  been  too  taken  up  with  your  own  fightin"?" 

"I've  picked  up  nothing,"  was  McKinnon's 
answer. 

"Then  why  can't  you  get  Guariqui?" 

The  ship's  master  was  still  slow  in  gr?  .ping 
the  situation. 

"I  tell  you  we're  cut  off  from  every  thing  I 
My  responder's  gone!" 

"Can't  you  fix  it?" 

"No!" 

"You  can't!" 

"Not  unless  there's  a  De  Forest  responder 
brought  aboard  from  Puerto  Locombia." 

"Can't  you  shift  without  it?" 

"No  more  than  you  can  live  without  a  heart." 

The  captain  turned  on  the  strangely  placid- 
eyed  and  listening  Ganley.  The  latter 's  indif 
ference  seemed  to  sting  him  into  a  renewed 
ecstasy  of  anger. 

"You'll  cool  your  heels  in  the  Puerto  Locom 
bia  quartel  for  this,"  he  declared,  with  another 
of  his  explosive  oaths.  "I'll  damned  soon  hand 
you  over  where  you  belong!" 

His  threat  had  no  ponderable  effect  on  his 
placid-eyed  listener.  The  gun-runner's  heavy 
face,  with  its  houndlike,  pendulous  jaws,  and 
the  drooping-lidded,  deep-set  eyes,  with  their 


250         THE  PRIMORDIAL  HOUR 

misleading  look  of  pathos,  seemed  to  show  noth 
ing  but  a  patient  forbearance. 

"I  want  you  to  get  that  couple  where  they 
belong, ' '  he  calmly  and  slowly  replied.  * '  I  want 
that  woman  put  where  she  won't  be  taking  pot 
shots  at  every  passenger  she  doesn't  like!" 

The  waiting  and  wide-eyed  group  at  the  door 
had  increased  by  this  time,  until  their  bodies, 
pressing  close,  shut  all  air  from  the  crowded 
cabin.  The  captain  shouldered  them  back  sav 
agely.  That  his  authority  should  be  overrid 
den,  in  his  own  ship,  on  his  own  deck,  was  more 
than  he  could  endure. 

"Get  out  o'  here!"  he  cried,  in  his  arbitrary 
and  inconsequential  rage.  "Get  out  o'  this 
cabin,  or  I'll  throw  you  out!" 

The  ship's  mate,  a  wiry  Costa  Rican  with  the 
hungry  and  predaceous  face  of  a  pirate,  made 
an  effort  to  forestall  his  superior  officer's  in 
tention.  He  dropped  the  leather-covered  bridge- 
telescope  which  in  his  haste  he  had  carried  with 
him,  and  caught  the  rebellious  passenger  by  the 
right  arm,  as  though  to  drag  him  forth. 

But  one  sweep  of  that  huge  right  arm  sent 
the  mate  stumbling  and  falling  over  the  ruins 
of  the  steamer-chair. 

Captain  Yandel  beheld  that  offence,  and  it 
left  him  no  longer  a  reasoning  being.  His  last 
instinctive  sense  of  order  and  right  had  been 


THE  PRIMORDIAL  HOUR          251 

outraged.  He  caught  up  the  leather-covered 
bridge-telescope.  He  swung  it  circlingly  back, 
above  his  head,  as  a  blacksmith  swings  a  sledge. 
He  would  have  brought  that  poised  cylinder  of 
glass  and  steel  blindly  down  on  the  other  man's 
skull,  had  the  ship's  mate  not  caught  the  end  of 
the  telescope  and  stopped  the  murderous  blow. 

"  You  coward !"  said  Ganley,  without  moving. 
The  two  ship 's  officers  still  stood  there,  automat 
ically  and  blindly  and  grotesquely  contending 
for  the  cylinder  of  leather-covered  steel. 

'  *  Not  that  way, ' '  cried  the  mate.  '  *  Don 't  kill 
him!'1 

"Yes,  I'll  kill  him!"  raged  the  captain.  "I'll 
kill  him  any  way  he  wants ! ' ' 

"Then  fight  it  out  on  deck — fight  it  out  like 
men ! ' ' 

"Fight  it  out!"  echoed  a  half-caste  deck 
hand,  shrilly,  carried  away  by  his  feelings,  as 
the  crowd  surged  out  into  the  open  spaces  of  the 
star-lit  deck. 

"Yes,  fight  it  out,  by  God!"  bellowed  the  in 
furiated  and  unreasoning  ship's  captain,  peel 
ing  off  his  coat  and  waving  back  the  circle  of 
onlookers.  "Fight  it  out,  like  men!" 

Heilig,  the  chief-engineer,  pushed  through 
the  protesting  crowd. 

"Captain,"  he  said  in  his  slow  and  gloomy 


252         THE  PRIMORDIAL  HOUR 

monotone,  "what  call've  yuh  got  to  go  prize- 
fightin'  on  your  own  ship?" 

"Shut  up!"  howled  back  his  superior  officer. 
"Get  back!" 

"Why 're  yuh  fightin'  with  a  he-rhinoceros 
like  him?"  persisted  the  other. 

"Get  back!     Gi' me  room!" 

The  gloomy  misanthrope  of  the  engine-room 
did  not  move.  He  stood  regarding  the  circle 
with  calm  and  scoffing  eyes. 

"It  ain't  fittin',"  he  slowly  objected.  "And 
it  ain't  right!" 

"Right?  I  know  my  rights!"  yelped  back 
Captain  Yandel,  waving  the  interloper  aside. 

He  rolled  up  his  sleeves,  with  shaking  hands, 
disclosing  strangely  fashioned  tattooed  figures 
on  his  thick  and  hirsute  forearms. 

McKinnon  closed  the  door,  that  the  woman  in 
the  cabin  might  not  see.  There  was  the  sound 
of  a  boatswain's  whistle,  a  murmur  of  voices, 
a  quick  shuffling  of  feet.  A  space  was  cleared 
on  the  deck,  promptly,  solemnly,  as  though  for 
the  despatch  of  some  casual  and  duly  appointed 
ship's  business.  Then  the  circle  re-formed, 
watching  and  silent,  waiting  with  set  faces,  for 
what  was  to  come.  And  McKinnon  saw  that  it 
was  indeed  to  come,  that  there  was  no  escap 
ing  it. 

For  one  moment  only  did  Ganley  hesitate. 


THE  PRIMORDIAL  HOUR          253 

Just  once  did  the  deepset  and  malicious  little 
eyes  shift  in  one  sidelong  glance  of  hesitancy. 
McKinnon,  from  his  cabin  door,  could  see  that 
look.  He  could  see  the  change  of  colour  that 
crept  slowly  up  through  the  gun-runner's  flaccid 
face.  It  did  not  blanch,  but  it  merged  from  a 
brick-dust  tint  to  the  dead-brown  hue  of  un- 
tanned  leather.  It  became  cadaverous,  and 
horrible  to  look  at.  Even  then  he  must  have 
seen  and  known  that  it  was  all  madness,  that  it 
was  more  than  useless,  that  it  solved  no  prob 
lems  and  settled  no  issues.  But  he  had  no 
choice  left  to  him. 

McKinnon 's  first  thought,  as  he  watched,  was 
that  Ganley  would  never  fight  fair.  Then  he  be 
held  the  close-packed  circle  of  rough  and 
waiting  faces,  of  bare-armed  and  hard-eyed 
watchers — for  even  the  stokers'  hole  had 
vomited  forth  its  soot-streaked,  naked-shoul 
dered  children  of  wonder — and  he  knew  that  the 
gun-runner  could  gain  nothing  by  trickery.  The 
ferine  and  active  brain  housed  in  the  great  sun- 
browned  skull  would  be  of  no  use  to  him  in  this. 
The  adroit  and  vulpine  intelligence  beyond  its 
screening  frontal  bone  could  now  flash  out  no 
path  of  deliverance.  He  was  confronted  by 
passions  that  were  adamitic  in  their  primitive- 
ness,  by  forces  that  belonged  to  the  world  of 
claws  and  tusks  and  talons. 


254         THE  PBIMORDIAL  HOUR 

Then  the  two  men  fought. 

It  seemed  grotesque,  at  first,  to  the  wearied 
and  indifferently  watching  McKinnon.  It  made 
him  think  of  a  combat  between  two  butchers, 
two  gross  butchers  clad  in  white.  There  was 
something  ludicrous  in  the  two  heavy  and  lurch 
ing  and  staggering  bodies,  lunging  at  each 
other,  like  Pleistocene  beasts  from  the  twilight 
of  time,  like  primordial  monsters  in  the  bitter 
and  brutal  combat  of  bitter  and  brutal  ages. 
The  sweat  oozed  out  on  their  skins.  It  dia 
monded  their  faces.  Then  the  beads  of  mois 
ture  ran  together,  and  gathered  into  slow  run 
nels  that  smarted  in  their  eyes  and  moistened 
their  necks  and  dripped  on  their  clothing,  mot 
tled  more  and  more  with  splashes  of  red. 

Then  it  became  brutish.  It  became  blind  and 
ponderous,  like  a  bull-fight.  It  impressed 
McKinnon  as  something  wordlessly  pathetic,  it 
was  so  useless  and  unreasoning,  so  futile  and 
foolish,  in  the  face  of  all  the  vaster  problems 
that  confronted  that  lonely  steamship  and  the 
lives  she  carried.  It  did  not  horrify  him,  for 
by  this  time  he  was  beyond  horror,  as  a 
swimmer  is  beyond  thought  of  a  passing  rain- 
shower. 

Then  it  became  sickening.  The  impact  of 
bone  and  flesh  on  flesh  and  bone  seemed  demean 
ing  and  dehumanising  to  the  dazed  and  shrink- 


THE  PRIMORDIAL  HOUR          255 

ing  onlooker.  The  hot  night  air,  which  left 
breathing  a  burden  to  even  the  untaxed  lungs, 
made  the  gasping  of  the  two  combatants  audible 
and  vocal,  made  it  pitiful,  like  the  gasps  of  the 
drowning,  made  it  short  and  guttural,  like  the 
tongue-choked  chest  heaves  of  an  anaesthetised 
patient.  The  fighters  became  two  vaguely  heav 
ing  and  gasping  white  hulks  blotched  with 
blood.  There  seemed  something  more  than 
sinister  in  their  dogged  persistence.  It  became 
satanic.  It  grew  into  an  affront  to  manhood, 
an  insult  to  the  quiet  stars  that  looked  down  on 
it.  It  became  a  living  nightmare,  in  which  two 
coiled  and  striking  and  threshing  Hates 
emerged  from  a  slime  that  was  antediluvian. 

McKinnon  turned  away,  sick  and  faint.  For 
he  had  seen  one  of  the  red-blotched  hulks  fall 
back  and  lie  full  length  on  the  deck.  He  had 
seen  the  Laminian's  captain  lean  over  that  pros 
trate  figure,  weakly,  swaying  forward  and  then 
backward,  where  he  would  surely  have  fallen, 
had  one  of  his  sailors  not  caught  him  under  the 
armpits  and  held  him  up.  It  was  over. 

McKinnon  heard  the  guttering  yelp  of 
triumph,  the  unreasoning  and  vapid  snarl  of 
success,  of  the  ship's  master  who  had  re-estab 
lished  his  disputed  mastership. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   RECAPTURED  KEY 

McKiNNON  turned  from  the  quiet  and  horror- 
stricken  figure  of  Alicia,  huddled  back  on  his 
berth-end,  and  contemplated  what  was  left  of 
his  broken  and  dismantled  apparatus.  He  felt 
like  a  child  in  an  open  boat,  without  oars,  ap 
proaching  an  inevitable  Niagara. 

Then  he  turned  back  to  the  girl.  There  was 
no  message  of  consolation  he  could  bring  to  her. 
It  came  slowly  home  to  him  how  hopeless  the 
entire  future  stretched  before  them.  A  great 
hatred  for  the  ship  on  which  he  stood  grew  up 
in  him.  His  spirit  revolted  against  the  horrors 
it  had  housed,  against  the  ordeals  through 
which  it  had  thrust  a  tender  and  innocent  life, 
against  the  enigmatic  perils  with  which  it  was 
still  to  threaten  that  life  and  his  own. 

Then  he  grew  calmer-thoughted.  He  began  to 
grope  and  probe  about  for  explanations  that 
would  sustain  her.  But  the  task  was  a  fruitless 
one.  There  was  nothing  to  say.  Instinctively, 

356 


THE  RECAPTURED  KEY          257 

as  he  stooped  over  her,  he  touched  her  hand  and 
murmured:  "I'm  sorry."  He  was  a  man  of 
action  always  before  one  of  emotion.  But  he 
had  to  swallow  hard,  to  clear  the  lump  from  his 
throat  as  he  spoke. 

He  stroked  the  passive  hand  that  lay  on  his 
pillow,  with  the  rough  timidity  with  which  a 
seaman  might  stroke  a  tired  and  captured  land 
bird.  Then  he  drew  back  his  berth-curtain  and 
lifted  his  electric  fan  from  its  shelf,  placing  it 
on  the  operating-table  so  that  the  current  of 
air  from  its  whirring  wings  might  blow  in  to 
where  she  rested.  Then  he  locked  and  bolted 
and  doubly  secured  his  cabin  door. 

"Is  it  hopeless?"  she  asked  at  last,  without 
turning  her  face  to  him.  She  struggled  to  ask 
it  casually,  but  the  bitter  listlessness  of  her 
voice  translated  every  tone  and  word  of  that 
question  into  the  notes  of  utter  tragedy. 

"No,  it's  not  hopeless,"  he  said,  combatively, 
aggressively,  for  her  sake  alone.  "This  is  a 
De  Forest  station.  We  have  the  international 
rights  common  to  all  wireless  operation.  We 
can  stand  on  those  rights.  We  can  hold  this 
room  until  help  of  some  sort  arrives." 

It  was  foolish,  he  knew,  even  as  he  uttered 
it.  They  could  be  driven  out,  or  starved  out, 
or  baked  out,  in  a  single  day.  Yet  as  he  kept 
up  the  pleasant  fiction,  he  was  infinitely  glad 


258          THE  RECAPTUBED  KEY 

of  her  presence  there.  He  needed  her,  not  be 
cause  she  could  buoy  him  up  to  meet  implacable 
adversities,  but  to  compel  him  to  sustain  him 
self  for  her  sake. 

"We  can  attach  a  power-wire  to  that  cabin 
door-handle,  so  that  no  one  dare  touch  it.  We 
can  run  a  wire  to " 

His  voice  trailed  off  and  went  out,  like  a 
burnt  fuse.  The  change  that  had  come  over 
him  was  so  sudden  that  the  woman  turned  and 
sat  up. 

"Wait!"  he  called,  in  a  voice  so  high-pitched 
it  sounded  what  was  almost  a  treble  note. 
"Wait!" 

He  stood  rooted  to  the  spot  for  a  moment, 
petrified  by  the  new  thought  that  had  come  to 
him. 

"It's  not  hopeless!"  he  cried  exultantly. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  the  other,  confronting 
him. 

* '  It  can  be  done !  The  models !  My  telephony 
models!  They  carry  what  is  practically  a  re- 
sponder!" 

The  woman  watched  him,  wide-eyed,  for  he 
was  down  on  the  floor,  on  his  knees,  before  the 
box  of  models,  lifting  out  strange  and  delicate 
bits  of  machinery — machinery  for  which  she 
had  always  felt  a  certain  fear  and  aloofness, 
since  the  quiet  evening  he  had  spoken  to  her 


THE  KECAPTURED  KEY          259 

of  high-frequency  oscillations  and  auctions  and 
ionising  gases. 

"I  tell  you  I  can  make  it  work!"  he  exulted. 

"Work?"  she  echoed. 

"It'll  take  time,  it'll  take  scheming,  but  I  can 
do  it!  I  can  have  the  whole  thing  rigged  up 
by  daylight.  By  morning  I  can  be  sending  and 
receiving  again!" 

He  was  on  his  feet  by  this  time,  trying  to 
explain  it  to  her. 

"My  key's  gone,  you  see;  but  that  doesn't 
make  it  hopeless.  I  can  adjust  a  piece  of  heavy 
copper  wire  to  my  rear  binding-post  here. 
Then  I  can  take  the  other  end  of  that  wire  and 
touch  it  at  the  contact-point  here  where  my  key 
used  to  strike.  I  can  spell  out  the  Morse  that 
way,  word  by  word.  We'll  be  able  to  talk! 
We'll  be  able  to  send  out  our  message!" 

"Is  this  true?"  she  asked,  her  wide  and 
shadowy  eyes  searching  his  face. 

"Yes,  it's  true!" 

"Quite  true?" 

"Every  word  of  it,  or  I  don't  know  wire 
less!" 

"That  means  we  can  call  the  Princeton." 

"We'll  be  still  closer  by  morning.  I'll  be 
ready  and  waiting  by  the  time  their  operator  is 
at  his  key.  And  by  noon  we  ought  to  pick  up 
Guariqui,  if  we  passed  the  Toajiras  Light  over 


260          THE  RECAPTURED  KEY 

three  Lours  ago — no,  before  that,  any  time  after 
sunrise!" 

"If  they  are  still  sending!"  said  the  woman. 

"They  must  be  sending,"  cried  McKinnon, 
as  he  bent  over  his  mysterious  instruments. 
"They  must  be,  or  the  Princeton  would  never 
have  been  calling  them  the  way  she  was." 

"Then  I  must  help  you  in  some  way!" 

"No,  you  must  rest.  This  is  work  I  have  to 
do  alone.  You  are  worn  out;  you  must  have 
rest.  You  must  sleep  if  you  can." 

"And  you?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  I'll  be  working  this  out.  There'll  be 
no  sleeping  in  this  place,  you  know,  once  I  start 
to  send!" 

"But  I  meant  that  you  need  rest,"  she  ex 
plained. 

He  could  even  laugh  now,  although  his 
laughter  was  both  brief  and  preoccupied. 

"Rest!"  he  cried.  "I'm  good  for  two  days 
without  a  drop  of  it,  once  I've  got  things  going 
the  way  I'm  trying  to  make  them  go." 

She  watched  the  white  electric  light  of  the 
drop-globe  pour  down  on  his  bent  and  con 
stantly  shifting  head.  She  could  see  the  little 
black  stain  of  dried  blood  on  his  temple.  She 
could  also  see  the  sweat  running  down  the  side 
of  his  face,  between  his  cheek-bone  and  his  ear. 
For  some  inexplicable  reason,  she  gave  a 


THE  RECAPTUBED  KEY          261 

throaty  and  inarticulate  little  gasp  of  gratitude. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked,  looking  up  quickly. 

"Nothing!"  she  answered,  turning  away  her 
head  so  that  he  would  not  see  a  foolish  tear  or 
two  in  her  eyes. 

"I  said  things  would  go  our  way — and  they 
will!"  he  declared,  ruminatively.  "Once  we  get 
this  message  out,  we'll  have  three  hundred 
American  bluejackets  up  in  Guariqui  inside  of 
two  days!" 

"And  Ganley?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  Ganley  will  be  about  again,  and  very 
much  alive  by  that  time!" 

"But  what  will  he  do — what  could  he  do,  if 
we  reach  Puerto  Locombia  before  the  Prince 
ton?" 

He  sat  back,  deep  in  troubled  thought. 

"That  is  the  one  thing  I  don't  know,  I  can't 
tell.  He's  hinted  at  some  trump  card  he's  got 
up  his  sleeve — but  he's  given  no  inkling  of  what 
it  is." 

"Then  we  can  only  wait?" 

"Yes,  we  can  only  wait!" 

Then  the  tightened  jaw-tendons  relaxed  into 
his  quick  and  conciliating  smile.  "But  why 
should  we  waste  thought  on  things  like  that!" 
he  cried,  with  his  forced  yet  valiant  laugh. 
"We're  going  to  have  a  banana-train  filled  with 
machine  guns  climbing  up  through  those  hills 


262          THE  EECAPTURED  KEY 

and  every  rebel  in  Locombia  under  cover  inside 
of  three  days!" 

Alicia  Boynton  did  not  answer  him  as  he 
stooped  and  studied  and  worked.  But  she  sat 
there,  with  her  hands  clasped  loosely  together, 
gratefully  and  softly  watching  the  aureole  of 
light  that  the  swinging  electric  made  about  the 
wireless-operator's  head. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  CALL  FOR  HELP 

THINGS  did  not  go  McKinnon's  way  as  easily 
as  lie  had  expected,  or  had  so  bravely  pretended 
to  expect.  The  first  gray  tinge  of  morning, 
deepening  slowly  to  pearl,  showed  along  the 
eastern  sky-line  before  he  had  completed  his 
task. 

He  sat  back  with  a  sigh  of  relief;  he  sat  back 
like  a  god  who  had  wearied  of  creation,  looking 
on  his  work  and  seeing  that  it  was  good.  The 
gray  and  pearl  along  the  sky-line  had  by  this 
time  turned  to  pale  rose,  and  slender  pencils 
of  light  were  showing  through  the  chinks  in  his 
cabin  shutter. 

Alicia  Boynton  was  still  asleep  on  his  nar 
row  berth.  So  narrow  was  her  resting-place, 
and  so  quiet  her  breathing,  that  it  seemed  to 
him  as  though  she  were  lying  in  a  coffin.  She 
had  dropped  off  into  that  sleep  of  utter  weari 
ness  against  her  will.  She  had  resolved  to  be 
with  him  and  near  him  every  moment  of  his 

263 


264  THE  CALL  FOR  HELP 

labour,  but  the  intriguing  claims  of  the  body 
had  dethroned  her  volition. 

And  now,  as  he  gazed  down  at  her  flower- 
like  and  tranquil  face,  he  dreaded  to  waken  her. 
He  felt  touched,  as  he  watched  the  quiet  throb 
of  the  pulse  in  her  blue-veined  temple  where 
the  dark  and  heavily  massed  brown  hair  had 
fallen  back,  with  a  sense  of  mystery  before  the 
ancient  miracle  of  sleep.  He  wondered  where 
her  escaped  spirit  had  gone  to ;  it  seemed  noth 
ing  more  than  the  quiescent  shell  of  her,  the 
empty  husk  of  her,  that  he  stood  and  watched. 

A  wayward  sense  of  loneliness,  of  desertion, 
crept  over  him,  and  he  turned  about,  not  un 
gratefully,  to  listen  to  the  familiar  swish  of 
deck-hose  and  thump  of  holy-stone  as  the  early 
awakened  deck-crew  washed  down  the  decks.  It 
was  commonplace  enough,  that  swish  of  sea- 
water  and  thump  of  mumbling  workers.  But 
at  the  moment  there  was  something  wordlessly 
companionable  in  it  to  the  listening  McKinnon. 
It  reminded  him  that  the  every-day  trivialities, 
the  orderly  actualities  that  sustain  the  ma 
chinery  of  life,  must  always  go  on,  no  matter 
how  close  may  brood  the  spirit  of  outer  tragedy. 
It  reminded  him,  too,  that  it  was  morning,  and 
that  the  hour  of  his  ultimate  trial  had  arrived. 

He  swung  his  door  open,  and  looked  out  along 
the  deck.  He  beheld  a  windless  sea,  and  a 


THE  CALL  FOE  HELP  265 

blood-red  tropical  sun  mounting  up  above  its 
rim,  where  dull  orange  paled  into  dark  azure. 
On  his  face  he  could  feel  the  sea  air,  still  fresh 
and  balmy.  There  seemed  something  Edenic 
in  its  limpidity,  something  unearthly  in  its  over- 
exquisite  and  unvoluptuous  softness.  It  seemed 
to  etherealise  life,  to  beautify  even  the  tainted 
and  sordid  hulk  of  wood  and  steel  and  steam 
that  forged  ever  forward  across  its  universal 
curve  of  azure  peace.  The  sea  itself,  as  he  stood 
there  watching  it,  assumed  strange  and  quickly 
altering  tints.  Along  some  slight  wind-riffle  it 
became  claret-coloured  and  turquoise  and  violet. 
The  lace-work  edge  of  some  wandering  current 
left  it  royal  with  floating  purple,  shot  through, 
in  spots,  with  flashing  ruby-red  that  held  all  the 
fire  of  a  thousand  cinnamon-garnets.  In  other 
places  some  miracle  of  refracted  light  made  the 
softly  undulatory  surface  a  bosom  of  breath 
ing  quicksilver.  Then  a  point's  shift  in  the 
sun's  altitude  merged  and  darkened  the  silver 
into  the  pale  blue  of  forget-me-nots,  deepening 
it  still  again  into  dully  lustrous  maroon  and 
lapis-lazuli,  streaking  it  with  lilac  and  apple- 
green,  leaving  it  as  varied  and  mystic  as  the 
breast-plate  of  an  Hebraic  high-priest. 

McKinnon  took  a  deep  breath  of  that  soft  and 
balmy  air,  and  felt  that  life  was  still  beautiful. 
He  felt  that  there  were  still  great  hopes  to  be 


266  THE  CALL  FOR  HELP 

thankful  for,  great  hazards  to  be  gladly  faced, 
great  ends  to  be  attained. 

Then  his  thoughts  came  down  to  more  ma 
terial  things,  as  he  looked  about  and  beheld  a 
dirty-jacketed  and  heavy-eyed  steward  carry 
ing  a  pewter  coffee-pot  and  a  tray  of  fruit  and 
toast  and  eggs  along  the  deck  to  the  captain's 
stateroom,  but  who  veered  about  to  the  wireless- 
room  door,  at  a  sign  from  McKinnon. 

" Couldn't  you  leave  that  with  me?"  asked 
the  operator. 

"It's  the  captain's,"  said  the  steward,  mov 
ing  impassively  on. 

"Wait!"  said  McKinnon,  taking  a  bill  from 
his  pocket.  "Your  captain's  not  even  awake 
yet.  And  you  could  have  a  second  trayful  up 
to  him  in  ten  minutes." 

The  heavy-eyed  steward  willingly  enough 
surrendered  his  burden  when  McKinnon  thrust 
the  bank-note  into  his  hand,  and  went  shuffling 
below-stairs  again,  to  replace  the  coffee-pot  and 
replenish  the  tray. 

McKinnon  closed  and  locked  his  cabin  door, 
before  he  set  down  the  breakfast  thus  caught 
on  the  wing.  When  he  looked  up  he  saw  Alicia 
Boynton  regarding  him  with  wide-open  and 
vaguely  wondering  eyes.  He  felt  glad  that  he 
had  escaped  the  brutality  of  waking  her  to  the 
troubled  world  that  still  encompassed  them. 


THE  CALL  FOE  HELP  267 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked. 

"It's  your  breakfast,"  he  said,  witH  studied 
cheeriness.  "You're  going  to  eat  it  while  I 
start  to  send." 

' '  Then  you  can  send  ? ' '  she  asked.  Her  world 
of  reality  seemed  slow  in  coming  back  to  her. 

"I've  got  to  go  to  the  engine-room  first," 
he  explained,  "to  see  about  my  power." 

"What  must  I  do!"  she  asked. 

"Lock  this  door  when  I  go  out,  and  don't 
open  it;  don't  open  it  for  Captain  Yandel  him 
self,  until  you  hear  me  knock  three  times." 

She  had  made  her  hurried  toilet  by  the  time 
he  was  back,  but  the  coffee  and  eggs  remained 
untouched.  McKinnon,  at  the  still  open  door, 
could  see  that  the  brief  tropical  morning  had 
already  merged  into  open  day.  He  could  see, 
too,  that  they  had  drawn  closer  in  to  the  Locom- 
bian  coast.  Along  the  southwest  lay  a  broken 
blue  line  of  mountains,  remote  and  lonely-look 
ing.  They  seemed  to  him,  under  their  high- 
arching  sky  of  abysmal  blue,  like  some  forlorn 
and  ragged  rampart  of  a  world's  end.  Still 
nearer  stretched  the  alluvial  plains  and  the  low, 
flat  line  of  swamp-land,  broken  here  and  there 
by  clumps  of  palms,  along  the  higher  spots 
where  the  ground-swell  of  the  emerald-tinted 
shallows  broke  in  blinding  white  on  the  coral 
beaches. 


268 

Between  the  toppling  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras 
and  the  littoral  mangrove  swamps  hung  a  crawl 
ing  and  miasmal  fog,  curling  and  feeling  its  way 
inward,  like  a  snake  trying  to  escape  the  heel 
of  the  hot  sun.  McKinnon's  flesh  tingled  and 
crept  a  little  as  he  looked  on  it,  for  it  disquieted 
and  overawed  him,  that  land  of  crawling  mists 
and  blazing  light  and  flaming  heat.  The  thought 
of  its  overcrowded  and  self-strangling  vegeta 
tion,  of  its  ceaseless  and  sinister  and  over- 
exuberant  life,  depressed  him.  He  was  glad 
enough  to  shut  and  lock  his  door  on  it  all. 

"You  haven't  eaten?"  he  said,  as  his  eye  fell 
on  the  untouched  breakfast. 

"I  don't  think  I  could,"  she  protested. 

"But  you  must !"  he  declared ;  and  she  found, 
to  her  wonder,  that  his  note  of  authority  held 
something  vaguely  appealing  and  consoling  to 
her. 

"I  couldn't  until  I  knew  you  were  sending 
again ! ' ' 

He  thought  over  that  statement,  for  the  situa 
tion  had  its  difficulties. 

"Not  a  word,  not  a  dot,  goes  out  until  we've 
had  our  breakfast,"  was  his  ultimatum.  He 
knew  that  she  needed  nourishment.  He  also 
knew  that  it  would  be  unwise  to  bank  too 
strongly  on  his  untested  apparatus.  And  he 
knew  that  defeat,  if  defeat  it  was,  would  be  a 


THE  CALL  FOE  HELP  269 

crushing  one.  So  he  ate,  though  it  was  more 
to  encourage  her  than  to  appease  his  own 
hunger.  And  when  their  frugal  meal  was 
finished,  he  looked  at  his  watch  with  specula 
tive  and  half-closed  eyes.  Then  he  gave  a  deep 
sigh  and  turned  to  his  operating-table. 

" Time's  up!"  was  all  he  said. 

The  girl,  sitting  on  the  berth-edge,  saw  his 
hand  go  up  to  the  switch-board;  she  saw  the 
lever  come  down  on  the  contact-pins,  one  by 
one,  and  heard  the  hum  and  drone  of  the 
wakened  dynamo.  She  saw  his  rubber-muffled 
fingers  catch  up  the  piece  of  heavy  insulated 
copper  wire  which  had  been  attached  to  the  dis 
mantled  binding-post,  and  the  flash  of  blue 
flame  that  exploded  from  knob  to  knob  across 
the  spark-gap  as  he  completed  his  circuit  by 
touching  his  wire-end  to  the  contact-point  of  his 
improvised  key.  She  saw  his  intently  inclined 
head  as  he  sat  listening  with  his  phones  pressed 
close  over  his  ears,  and  the  strong-sinewed  yet 
still  oddly  boyish-looking  face  beaded  with 
minute  drops  of  perspiration. 

His  preoccupied  left  hand  went  out  to  his 
tuner,  and  still  he  sat  there,  over  his  recon 
structed  responder,  waiting.  The  only  sound  in 
the  cabin  was  the  continuous  whir  of  the  elec 
tric  fan  on  its  unpainted  pine  shelf.  The 
minutes  dragged  slowly  away.  The  silence  be- 


270  THE  CALL  FOE  HELP 

came  nerve-torturing,  piling  up  like  a  wave  that 
refuses  to  break  and  fall. 

"It's  useless!"  cried  the  girl. 

McKinnon  silenced  her  with  a  peremptory 
movement  of  the  hand. 

"Wait!"  he  commanded. 

He  leaned  forward,  slowly,  until  his  breast 
bone  pressed  against  the  edge  of  the  table. 
Then  came  a  moment  or  two  of  unbroken  quiet 
ness. 

"I've  got  them!"  he  whispered. 

But  still  again  the  silence  was  unbroken  as 
the  man  with  the  glimmering  steel  band  across 
his  head  sajt  crooked  up  like  a  schoolboy  over  a 
slate,  listening.  His  hand  went  out  to  the  lever- 
heads  in  the  numeral-lined  slots  of  his  tuning- 
box,  as  he  paused  to  tune  up  to  the  wave-pitch 
of  some  as  yet  undecipherable  message.  His 
half-closed  eyes  opened  and  widened,  and  he 
was  suddenly  springing  for  the  switch-handle 
of  his  starting-box  again. 

"I've  got  them,"  he  cried  exultantly,  as  he 
turned  to  his  key.  "I've  got  two  of  them!" 

"Two  of  them?" 

"Yes;  they're  both  talking  at  once.  I've  got 
to  make  one  hold  back,  if  I  can  reach  him.  If 
not,  I've  got  to  tune- him  out!" 

His  voice  was  cut  off  by  the  familiar  spit  and 
flash  of  the  huge  blue  spark,  and  a  thin  ozonic 


THE  CALL  FOE  HELP!  271 

odour  filled  the  closed  room,  strangely  like  the 
smell  of  summer  air  after  a  thunder-storm.  The 
rapt  and  wistful  eyes  of  the  woman  watched 
him  as  he  worked,  touched  into  wonder  before 
the  inscrutable,  humbled  into  momentary  amaze 
ment  by  the  unfathomable  mystery  of  Hertzian 
waves. 

"Thank  God!"  he  cried,  "it's  Guariqui!" 

"Guariqui!"  echoed  the  woman. 

He  silenced  her  sharply,  for  he  had  his  ear  at 
his  phone  again,  and  was  once  more  working 
nervously  over  his  tuning-box. 

"We've  lost  them,"  he  murmured  dejectedly. 

"Are  you  sure?"  she  whispered,  out  of  the 
silence  that  followed. 

"We've  lost  them  both!"  he  almost  groaned. 
The  whir  of  the  fan  and  the  breathing  of  the 
two  listeners  was  the  only  sound  in  the  cabin. 
The  quietness  again  seemed  like  an  up-piling 
breaker  that  refused  to  fall  and  retreat.  The 
woman  stirred  uneasily. 

"Wait!"  cried  McKinnon,  with  suddenly  in 
clined  head.  His  face,  now  seamed  with  runnels 
of  sweat,  was  drawn  and  the  jaw  muscles  were 
set  and  knotted.  He  jerked  a  nervous  hand  to 
ward  the  droning  fan,  peevishly,  as  though  its 
presence  were  a  personal  aff ront  to  him. 

"Shut  off  that  fan,"  he  commanded. 

The  woman  rose  without  a  word  and  shut  it 


272  THE  CALL  FOE  HELP 

off.  There  was  a  malicious  little  spit  of  the  re 
bellious  current,  a  spark  of  blue  under  the  ja 
panned  standard,  and  the  revolving  brass  wheel- 
wings  came  to  a  stop.  Nothing  but  the  sound 
of  breathing  filled  the  cabin. 

11  There!"  McKinnon's  voice  erupted  like  one 
of  his  own  coil-sparks  through  the  silence. 
"Now  I've  got  them!" 

He  jumped  for  his  key,  talking  over  his  shoul 
der  as  he  did  so. 

"It's  the  Guariqui  operator,"  he  explained, 
as  he  worked.  "He's  sending  very  weak;  I  can 
hardly  get  him.  He  says  his  power's  giving  out, 
and  De  Brigard's  men  are  targeting  at  his 
aerials  with  carbines. 

Then  he  flung  himself  into  his  chair,  and 
caught  up  his  form  pad  for  transcription,  with 
his  receiver  once  more  over  his  head.  He  wrote 
slowly,  with  intent  eyes  and  wrinkled  brow, 
word  after  word,  sometimes  going  back  and 
scratching  out  a  phrase,  sometimes  puzzled  by 
a  lost  dot  or  dash  in  the  stuttering  Morse,  some 
times  quickly  "breaking"  and  asking  the  opera 
tor  to  repeat.  His  breath  came  shorter  and 
quicker  as  he  listened  and  wrote.  Then  he  called 
frenziedly,  and  listened,  and  called  again. 

"They're  dead!"  he  exclaimed,  in  disgust. 

"Dead?"  cried  the  woman,  in  white-lipped 
alarm. 


THE  CALL  FOE  HELP  273 

1  'I  mean  I  can't  get  them !  Their  wires  must 
be  gone!" 

His  use  of  the  word  "dead"  still  terrified  the 
woman  at  his  side.  He  had  no  time  to  explain. 
He  simply  thrust  his  inscribed  pad  sheets  into 
her  hand  as  he  turned  to  his  key  again,  for  time 
now  was  precious,  terribly  precious. 

She  read : 

Duran's  men  all  here.  Shut  up  in  city  waiting  cartridge 
shipment.  Light  skirmishes  last  two  days.  Ulloa  held 
De  Brigard  back  all  yesterday,  but  had  to  fall  back  on 
city  at  night.  Short  of  ammunition.  .  .  .  We  are  shut 
in.  De  Brigard's  forces  surrounded  city  at  daybreak. 
Courier  reports  rebels  bringing  machine  guns  up  through 
hills,  from  Sanibella.  We  must  have  help  before  guns  join 
bombardment.  Carbines  are  picking  at  my  aerials  from 
Paraiso  Hill,  to  the  east.  Can  you  get  Chilean  battle 
ship  two  days  off  Puerto  Locombia  or  British  ship  out  of 
Kingston?  Must  have  help.  Relay  call  to  anything  in 
reach.  .  .  .  Duran's  authority.  .  .  .  Or  if  Chilean  or 
British  marines  can  be  landed  in  time  advise  them  to  push 
in  by  way  of  Boracao.  American  Consul  Klauser  shut  up 
there  holding  wireless  with  Kilvert,  United  Fruit  operator, 
but  report  bad  sending.  ...  Is  only  disaffected  town 
outside  capital.  .  .  .  Entrain  there.  .  .  .  Must 
hurry.  .  .  . 

Her  hungry  eyes  rushed  back  and  forth  along 
the  second  sheet  which  McKinnon  had  thrust 
into  her  hand : 

Can  get  Princeton.  .  .  .  Some  one  from  God's  coun 
try.  .  .  .  Must  hurry.  Yes,  president  and  cabinet  safe. 
Seven  hundred  crowded  in  Palace  yards  and  water  shut  off. 
Tell  Princeton  not  to  wait  to  land  guns.  Remember  Boracao 
switch  bridge  is  mined.  .  .  .  Bullet  against  switch- 


274  THE  CALL  FOE  HELP 

board.    .    .    .    Get  me  south  of  Boston  again — hurry — use 
— power  dying— hurry. 

That  was  the  end  of  the  message. 

''But  the  Princeton!"  gasped  the  woman.  "If 
you  can't  get  the  Princeton!" 

"Wait — wait — I'm  getting  her,"  answered 
the  man,  bent  low  over  his  responder,  as  though 
the  sense  it  appealed  to  were  vision  and  not 
sight.  "They've  been  waiting  for  me  to  relay. 
They've  been " 

He  left  the  speech  unended,  for  he  was  busy 
sending  his  spark  cannonading  across  its  gap. 

He  kept  up  that  cannonading  until  it  seemed 
to  the  watching  woman  that  it  was  never  going 
to  end.  Then  he  switched  off  and  listened  again, 
and  again  cannonaded  his  answer. 

Then  he  dropped  wearily  into  his  chair,  wiped 
he  was  not  alone.  He  looked  up  at  the  woman 
with  a  strangely  transfiguring  smile  on  his 
sweat-stained  face. 

"It's  over,"  he  said,  with  the  simplicity  of 
utter  weariness. 

"You've  got  them — the  Princeton?"  she 
asked. 

"I've  got  them!" 

She  put  out  her  two  Hands  to  him.  It  was 
meant  as  an  impersonal  gesture  of  gratitude, 
and  he  knew  it  as  he  took  them  in  his.  But  there 
seemed  something  revivifying  and  electrical  in 


THE  CALL  FOE  HELP  275 

the  sweat  from  his  face,  and  remembered  that 
mere  contact  with  them,  something  that  brought 
the  hope  and  joy  of  life  back  to  his  tired  body. 
He  laughed  aloud. 

"I  gave  them  what  they  were  aching  for! 
They  were  lying  there  steaming  and  baking  and 
fretting  for  the  very  one  word  I  sent  on  to 
them." 

' 'Then  they'll  come!" 

"Come!  Yes,  they'll  come!  They've  been 
lying  there  whimpering  to  get  up  at  De  Brigard, 
just  like  a  rat-terrier  whimpering  to  get  at  a 
kitten." 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment,  as  his  mind  pic 
tured  the  sudden  change,  so  many  miles  away, 
that  was  flashing  and  thrilling  through  all  the 
great  gray  hulk  of  that  wakened  battle-ship,  of 
the  signal-bells  clanging,  the  orders  being  given, 
the  furnaces  being  stoked,  the  decks  being 
cleared. 

"And  before  to-morrow  night  they  will  be 
anchored  at  Puerto  Locombia." 

"Before  to-morrow  night?"  she  repeated, 
with  sinking  heart. 

"She  has  to  steam  all  the  way  from  Torre- 
blanca — she  can't  cover  the  distance  in  less  than 
thirty  hours  under  any  circumstances. ' ' 

"But  we  will  be  at  Puerto  Locombia  to-day, 
before  nightfall!" 


276  THE  CALL  FOB  HELP 

"I  know  it,"  he  said,  with  all  the  joy  and 
confidence  trailing  out  of  his  voice. 

"Then  Ganley  will  have  one  whole  day  to 
act.  The  Sanibella  guns  will  be  pushed  up  to 
Guariqui.  Ulloa's  men  will  be  without  ammu 
nition." 

' '  They  can  hold  out ! "  he  answered  her. 

"But  they  may  not,"  she  cried.  "It  may  all 
be  over  and  done  before  we  can  help  them.  And 
we  will  be  here  at  the  mercy  of  Ganley !" 

She  failed  to  impart  any  shred  of  her  terror 
to  the  listening  operator. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  with  abstracted  and  studious 
eyes,  "that  is  the  one  thing  that  worries  me." 

"But  Ganley  can  do  anything,  once  we're  at 
Puerto  Locombia.  This  ship  and  everything  it 
carries  will  be  under  his  thumb ! ' ' 

"Yes,  that  is  still  our  problem — we've  still 
got  that  bridge  to  cross,"  he  confessed.  "Yet 
I  think  we  can  cross  it,  when  the  time  comes." 

"But  how?"  she  demanded. 

"By  not  having  this  ship  remain  at  Puerto 
Locombia,  once  Ganley 's  put  ashore,"  was  his 
answer. 

"Then  in  what  way  could  we  still  help 
Guariqui — in  time?"  was  her  forlorn  and  help 
less  query. 

"We've  got  to  make  a  way!"  he  told  her, 
with  his  grim  yet  reassuring  smile. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  TRUMP  CAED 

IT  was  eight  hours  later  that  the  Laminian 
made  her  way  under  half-speed  into  the  road 
stead  at  Puerto  Locombia. 

She  drifted  guardedly  in  over  shoals  of  trans 
lucent  verdancy,  with  her  screw  churning  the 
lettuce-green  waters  into  coiling  and  copperas- 
tinted  eddies. 

A  long  iron  pier  ran  out  into  this  green- 
watered  roadstead,  its  trestles  spanned  by  the 
single  track  of  a  narrow-gauge  railway.  On 
either  side  of  the  concrete  breakwater  that 
lipped  the  sea-edge  of  the  town  itself  stretched 
away  two  curves  of  white  sand  with  their  in 
termittently  whitening  surf.  Then  came  scat 
tering  clumps  of  lonely  palms,  then  a  lower 
mist-hung  coast  of  ooze  and  mangrove  and 
steaming  lagoon. 

Behind  the  concreted  crescent  of  shore-line, 
to  which  the  roadstead  pier  seemed  like  an  ar 
row  set  in  a  drawn  bow,  stood  irregular  lines 

277 


278  THE  TRUMP  CARD 

of  thatched  huts,  of  mud  and  bamboo  wattle, 
crowding  on  narrow  streets  that  sloped  to  the 
centre  and  held  sidewalks  no  wider  than  a  wall- 
top.  Still  nearer  ranged  the  more  substantial 
part  of  the  town,  the  bald,  sun-scorched  build 
ings  of  corrugated  iron  and  tin,  the  one-story, 
open-front  shops,  with  red  tile  roofs,  the  unin 
viting  rectangular  bodegas  and  the  austere 
and  gloomy  government  buildings.  Over  the 
latter  drooped  strange  flags  of  yellow  and  red 
and  blue. 

On  the  higher  ground  to  the  right  ran  rusty 
streets  lined  with  pink  and  yellow-tinted  house 
walls  of  stucco,  with  heavy  Spanish  shutters 
and  terra-cotta  roof-tiles.  Along  the  fringe  of 
lower  ground  to  the  extreme  left  stood  irregular 
rows  of  wattled  huts,  raised  the  height  of  a  man 
from  the  "sand-jiggers"  and  the  miasmal  tun 
dra  under  them,  looking  like  lines  of  patient 
herons  as  they  balanced  on  their  rotting  palm- 
wood  stilts. 

Beyond  the  town,  leading  into  the  slowly  ris 
ing  ground  of  the  southwest,  wound  a  road  of 
shell  and  limestone,  leaving  a  crooked  scar  of 
white  against  the  blackness  of  the  lowlands 
through  which  it  crept.  Close  in  by  the  concrete 
breakwater  lay  the  ribs  and  spars  of  a  wrecked 
schooner,  mysteriously  adding  to  the  atmos 
phere  of  gloom  and  neglect.  On  a  side-track 


THE  TRUMP  CARD  279 

curving  from  the  pier-end  stood  a  dismantled 
train  of  cars,  so  small  that  they  looked  like  a 
child's  toys.  Near-by  lay  a  derailed  locomotive, 
brown  with  rust,  strangely  pathetic  in  its  atti 
tude  of  resigned  helplessness.  Thirty  paces 
from  this  stood  the  tottering  remains  of  a  corru 
gated-iron  warehouse,  its  fallen  roof  and  twisted 
wall-plates  showing  plainly  enough  that  it  had 
been  blown  up  by  either  Ulloa  or  the  insurgents. 

Farther  out  along  the  broken  pier  rolled  and 
creaked  a  soft-coal-burning  tug.  About  her 
single  deck,  under  her  overlarge  and  drooping 
ensign  of  red  and  yellow  and  blue,  lounged  and 
waited  a  number  of  figures  in  red-striped  uni 
forms.  Obsolete  brass  cannon  shimmered  at  her 
bow  and  stern,  and  a  carbine-rack  showed  out 
just  aft  of  her  wheel-house. 

It  was  while  this  strangely  accoutred  tug 
cast  off  and  came  puffing  and  wheeling  about  to 
meet  the  newcomer  into  the  roadstead  that  Mc- 
Kinnon  and  Alicia  Boynton  stood  at  the  rail, 
gazing  landward.  Nothing  seemed  left  for  them 
now  but  to  watch  and  wait.  Everything  that  lay 
in  their  power  had  been  done ;  all  they  could  do 
now  was  to  study  the  cards  as  Fate  threw  them 
on  the  board. 

"That's  one  of  De  Brigard's  gunboats!"  said 
the  watching  and  anxious-eyed  girl. 

"So  those  are  the  tools  that  Ganley  works 


280  THE  TRUMP  CARD 

with!"  said  the  operator,  looking  with  open 
scorn  at  the  strange  tug,  the  strange  ensign,  the 
still  stranger  figures  in  uniform.  He  tried  to 
hide  his  anxiety  and  depression  under  a  light 
ness  of  tone  that  seemed  as  incongruous,  even 
to  his  own  ears,  as  the  tricoloured  ensign  flap 
ping  over  the  soft-coal-burning  craft  before 
them. 

11  Those  are  the  tools  that  can  cut  deep,  when 
they  have  to,"  was  the  woman's  answer,  as  she 
once  more  looked  landward. 

"  They  're  burning  Parroto!"  cried  some  one 
from  a  lower  deck,  in  plaintive  wonder.  "That's 
Parroto  going  up  in  smoke  there ! ' ' 

McKinnon,  under  the  rocking  awning  that 
could  not  altogether  shut  out  the  hot  sun  of  the 
late  afternoon,  leaned  farther  over  the  rail  and 
peered  inland. 

Far  to  the  south  and  west  stretched  the  flat 
and  gloomy  swamps,  steaming  under  the  sun's 
rays,  mephitic  and  menacing.  Still  farther 
away,  tier  by  tier,  rose  the  hills,  with  a  condor 
wheeling  above  them  here  and  there. 

They  lifted,  in  gentle  waves  softened  with  the 
green  of  orange  and  banana  and  cocoanut-palm, 
of  bamboo  and  breadfruit,  until  they  crowded 
mistily  up  to  the  huddled  blue  line  of  the  moun 
tain-ridges,  to  the  very  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras, 
lonely,  forbidding,  and  Seemingly  impenetrable. 


THE  TEUMP  CARD  281 

From  one  of  the  nearer  tiers  of  hills  black 
columns  of  smoke  twined  and  curled  and  bil 
lowed  up  into  the  air.  It  was  the  town  of  Par- 
roto,  still  in  flames. 

But  no  sound  or  sign  of  movement  came  from 
shore.  A  mysterious  and  drug-like  sleep  seemed 
to  envelop  both  town  and  swamp  and  hills.  Yet 
McKinnon,  watching  with  set  and  thoughtful 
face,  knew  that  somewhere  in  the  dust-laden 
streets  between  the  stucco  walls  senoritas  were 
peering  from  jalousies,  and  naked  children  were 
playing  and  lean  curs  were  prowling.  In  the 
yellow  church  facing  the  Prado  priests  were 
moving  about.  In  the  shadowy  bodegas  flies 
were  buzzing  and  glasses  were  clinking,  and 
swarthy  and  undersized  patriots  were  rolling 
cigarettes  and  enlarging  on  the  true  paths  that 
led  to  liberty.  In  each  tesselated  patio  shad 
owed  by  rustling  palm-fronds,  were  women  and 
old  men,  and  beside  the  mud  oven  of  each  wat 
tled  hut  meals  were  being  made  ready  and  eaten. 
It  took  him  back  to  the  past,  painfully,  to  the 
past  that  he  would  much  rather  have  forgotten. 

"Does  it  look  like  home?"  he  asked  the  girl 
at  his  side,  a  little  absently,  a  little  bitterly. 

She  was  silent  for  another  minute  or  two,  as 
her  eyes  turned  through  the  broken  line  of  the 
Cordilleras  to  where  Guariqui  lay,  to  where  still 


282  THE  TRUMP  CARD 

waited  the  life  for  which  she  had  fought  and 
risked  so  much. 

"It  will  never  seem  home  to  me  again,"  she 
answered. 

"But  it  was  your  home  once!" 

"Yes,  I  used  to  think  it  was  almost  beautiful. 
The  movement  and  colour  and  mystery  of  it! 
The  fiestas,  and  the  music,  the  glitter  and  pomp 
of  its  little  court  life  that  so  satisfied  my  foolish 
vanity,  the  riding  and  the  freedom,  the  passion 
and  warmth  of  everything!  You  may  not  believe 
me,  or  understand  me  when  I  say  it,  but  I  can 
remember  when  it  used  to  make  me  almost 
drunk,  especially  at  night!" 

He  felt  vaguely  envious  of  those  earlier  and 
happier  days ;  he  felt  that  he  had  been  cheated 
out  of  something.  But  her  eyes,  through  all 
their  mournfulness,  glowed  like  a  tropical  sea 
touched  with  moonlight,  as  she  smiled  up  at 
him ;  and  he  forgot  the  feeling. 

"It  was  beautiful  to  me — then,"  she  con 
fessed.  "But  the  beauty  was  there,  I  think,  be 
cause  I  put  it  there." 

To  the  eyes  of  the  tired  and  anxious  man  at 
her  side  it  seemed  anything  but  beautiful.  It 
seemed  a  land  of  unbroken  silence,  of  sullen 
mystery,  of  primordial  shadow  and  gloom,  from 
the  white  lip  of  the  beach  that  sucked  so  fever 
ishly  at  the  pale  copper-green  of  the  sea-water 


THE  TEUMP  CAED  283 

to  the  misty  line  of  its  farthest  mountain-tops. 
And  he  wondered  if  it  was  to  be  allowed  him 
ever  to  reach  those  mountains,  and  what  would 
await  him  there.  He  wondered,  with  such  odds 
against  him,  if  the  hour  for  activity  would  bring 
with  it  an  honest  fighting-chance. 

He  turned  his  anxious  eyes  to  the  tug  swing 
ing  authoritatively  in  under  the  Laminian's 
quarter.  He  knew  only  too  well,  from  the  gas 
conading  attitudes  of  its  uniformed  officials, 
from  the  sheer  effrontery  with  which  they 
swung  in  and  overhauled  the  bigger  steamship, 
that  he  was  at  last  beholding  the  local  instru 
ments  of  the  new  " Liberal"  dictatorship.  And 
he  knew  that  with  their  advent  the  curtain  was 
about  to  rise  on  a  new  act  of  the  tangled  drama. 
He  racked  his  brain  to  understand  what  Gan- 
ley's  move  would  be.  He  knew  that  all  day  long 
the  gun-runner  had  kept  to  his  cabin.  A  stew 
ard  had  reported  that  his  head  was  bad  and 
causing  him  much  pain.  He  had  eaten  nothing; 
he  had  kept  his  berth,  cursing  the  Laminian  and 
the  heat  of  her  coffinlike  cabins  and,  above  all, 
her  sottish  and  pigheaded  captain. 

Yet  McKinnon  knew  it  would  take  more  than 
a  sore  head  to  keep  Ganley  from  acting  when 
the  moment  for  action  arrived.  The  one  thing 
that  puzzled  the  operator  was  what  form  that 
first  move  of  Ganley 's  was  to  take. 


284  THE  TRUMP  CARD 

Some  hint  as  to  the  solution  of  that  problem 
came  even  as  he  stood  there  at  the  ship's  rail, 
watching.  It  came  in  the  form  of  a  shoe,  flung 
from  an  open  port-hole  of  the  Laminian  to  the 
deck  of  the  indrawing  tug.  This  shoe — it  was 
a  ludicrous,  wide-toed,  well-worn  thing  of 
humble  calfskin — was  picked  up  by  the  epau- 
letted  officer  of  the  local  comandante,  looked  at 
with  open  disgust,  and  flung  openly  overboard. 
But  McKinnon  noticed  that  before  this  took 
place,  the  officer  in  question  had  extracted  from 
its  wide-toed  interior  a  slip  of  closely  folded 
paper.  He  promptly  disappeared  from  sight,  in 
the  wheel-house,  and  when  he  reappeared,  his 
tug  was  grating  and  bumping  along  the  La- 
mininan's  side-plates,  heedless  of  the  blasphe 
mous  and  stentorian  imprecations  of  Captain 
Yandel,  bellowing  and  gesticulating  from  his 
bridge-end. 

McKinnon  himself  neither  heard  nor  noticed 
any  of  this.  He  was  too  busily  engaged  in  watch 
ing  the  port-hole,  from  which  the  shoe  had  ap 
peared.  He  saw  a  boat-hook  swung  carelessly 
up  to  it,  a  red  hand  reach  out  and  lift  something 
from  the  end  of  it,  and  the  boat-hook  continue 
to  scratch  along  the  ship's  side-plates  as  though 
searching  for  a  hold.  Then  the  tug  made  fast. 

Two  minutes  later  a  coffee-coloured  official 
wearing  cavalry  boots,  red-striped,  blue  denim 


THE  TRUMP  CARD  285 

trousers,  a  yellow-faced  white  jacket  and  a  gold- 
braided  cap,  came  aboard.  He  carried  a  sword, 
held  at  his  side  by  a  red  sash,  and  was  followed 
by  an  alert-eyed,  narrow-shouldered,  yellow- 
faced  youth  in  blue  denim  striped  with  red. 

The  officer  with  the  sword  brought  his  heels 
together  and  saluted  Captain  Yandel.  That 
worthy  seaman,  descending  from  his  bridge,  de 
manded  to  know,  in  English,  why  he  was  so 
damned  slow  about  getting  pratique,  and  what 
all  the  damned  fuss  was  about. 

Before  any  reply  was  proffered  to  these  im 
patient  queries,  Ganley  himself  appeared  from 
below  deck.  A  crooked  smile  rested  on  his 
bruised  and  swollen  face,  a  smile  that  seemed 
more  sinister  than  the  light  in  his  baleful  and 
blood-shot  little  eyes. 

' '  Come  in  off  the  deck ! "  he  commanded,  with 
the  calmness  of  unquestioned  authority. 

That  was  all  that  McKinnon  heard,  for  the 
talk  was  resumed  in  the  captain's  stateroom, 
with  thunderous  volleys  of  broken  Spanish  on 
the  one  side,  with  calm  and  dictatorial  insolence 
on  the  other.  It  was  to  this  talk  that  Alicia, 
as  she  leaned  over  the  ship's  rail,  listened  so  at 
tentively. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  McKinnon,  noticing  her 
wide  and  terrified  eyes. 

"We  are  in  quarantine,"  ehe  answered. 


286  THE  TRUMP  CARD 

"In  quarantine?" 

"Yes." 

"Do  they  say  why?" 

"The  comandante  has  ordered  us  to  be  held 
here.  They  are  sending  a  detachment  of  sol 
diers  to  watch  the  ship.  We  are  to  be  kept  here, 
prisoners." 

'  *  But  there 's  no  fever ! ' ' 

"  No ;  of  course  not !  It 's  the  old  trick !  They 
daren't  outrage  our  flag  openly — we  are  an 
American  ship !  They  daren't  insult  our  colours 
by  open  capture.  But  they  draw  what  they  call 
a  dead  line,  and  they  shoot  down  everyone  who 
crosses  it!" 

"So  that's  how  they  intend  to  hold  us!" 

"Yes — I  heard  Ganley  say,  in  Spanish,  that 
he'd  keep  up  here  until  he  finished  his  game.  He 
told  Captain  Yandel  that  he  was  going  to  tie 
him  up  here  until  his  anchor-flukes  were  bar 
nacled.  ' ' 

"But  what's  their  excuse  for  this?"  he  asked, 
with  absent  and  preoccupied  eyes,  for  his  busy 
brain  was  already  reconnoitring  into  the 
menacing  future. 

' l  He  claims  that  it 's  yellow  fever — that  we  Ve 
entered  the  affected  zone." 

' '  So  that  was  his  trump  card,  after  all ! "  said 
the  meditative  McKinnon. 

"It's  the  card  that  makes  us  lose,"  was  the 


THE  TRUMP  CARD  287 

girl's  hopeless  rejoinder.  "We  must  stay  here 
prisoners,  as  much  prisoners  as  though  we  were 
cooped  up  in  a  quartel,  for  a  whole  day  and  a 
whole  night !  We  are  here,  worse  than  helpless, 
until  the  Princeton  comes!" 

She  came  to  a  stop,  and  shuddered  a  little. 

"Oh,  believe  me,"  she  told  him,  in  her  tense 
and  low-toned  voice,  "believe  me,  I  am  not  a 
coward! But  anything,  any 
thing,  can  happen  on  this  ship  to-night!" 

The  intentness  with  which  he  was  studying 
her  face  brought  her  wondering  eyes  up  to  his. 

"I'm  afraid  you've  got  to  be  very  brave,"  he 
said,  as  gently  as  he  could. 

"Yes I  know,"  she  said,  a 

little  brokenly. 

"But  braver  in  a  different  way,"  he  amended. 

"Why?"  she  asked. 

"Because  you  and  I  are  going  to  break  this 
quarantine  to-night ! ' ' 

She  looked  from  him  to  the  smoke-columns 
that  hung  over  Parroto,  and  then  back  at  the 
carbine-rack  and  the  brass  guns  of  the  coman- 
dante's  smoke-belching  ship-of-war. 

"We  can't,"  she  said,  with  a  little  gasp  of 
despair.  "We  would  have  no  chance.  There  is 
no  place  to  go  to — and  they  will  have  orders  to 
shoot.  It  would  be  giving  them  the  chance  they 
are  waiting  for.  We  can 't  go ! " 


288  THE  TRUMP  CAKD 

"We've  got  to!"  McKinnon  said,  doggedly. 

"But  where  could  we  go?  Where  could  we 
find  safety?"  she  demanded,  as  her  hopeless  and 
unhappy  eyes  swept  the  inhospitable  country 
that  confronted  them.  In  all  that  country,  she 
knew,  there  was  not  a  hamlet  or  town,  not  a 
valley  or  jungle,  that  could  offer  them  safety. 
There  was  not  a  square  mile  of  it,  outside  the 
beleaguered  walls  of  Guariqui  itself,  that  would 
offer  them  harbour. 

"We're  going  to  Giuiriqui  to-night — you  and 
II"  said  McKinnon,  meeting  her  wondering 
gaze  with  his  clear  and  steadfast  eyes. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  DEAD-LINE 

ALICIA  stood  on  guard  at  the  door  of  the  wire 
less  room,  waiting  for  McKinnon's  return.  More 
and  more,  in  those  last  strange  hours  of  uncer 
tainty,  she  dreaded  being  alone.  There  seemed 
something  ominous  and  bodeful  in  the  very 
quietness  of  the  midnight  ship,  as  she  rocked 
and  grated  against  the  pier  in  the  long  and  sul 
len  ground-swell  of  the  roadstead.  The  screw 
no  longer  throbbed,  the  engines  no  longer  pulsed 
and  churned.  The  quietness  seemed  deathlike. 
It  was  broken  only  by  the  steps  of  De  Brigard's 
sentries,  as  they  sleepily  paced  the  long  deck, 
one  to  port  and  one  to  starboard.  Yet  even 
these  two  figures,  with  their  shouldered  car 
bines,  seemed  ghostlike,  presaging  vague  evils. 
The  heat,  too,  was  oppressive,  for  not  a  breath 
of  air  seemed  to  stir  in  the  quiet  ship.  But  in 
comparably  more  oppressive  was  the  silence  so 
rhythmically  broken  by  the  spectral  tread  of  the 
pacing  sentries.  Then  the  infinitely  minute 

389 


290  THE  DEAD-LINE 

sound  of  another  movement  crept  in  to  her 
straining  ears.  She  took  up  the  heavy  revolver 
as  McKinnon  had  warned  her  to  do,  and 
crouched  back  into  the  remotest  corner  of  the 
cabin,  listening  and  waiting. 

The  girl's  heart  stood  still  as  McKinnon  him 
self  quietly  swung  back  the  cabin  door,  dodged 
inside,  and  as  quickly  closed  and  locked  the  door 
behind  him.  He  stood  there  with  his  back  to 
her,  listening,  without  so  much  as  a  glance  in  her 
direction.  He  heard  the  pacing  steps  pass  and 
die  away,  and  pass  still  again.  Then  he  mur 
mured  a  grateful ' '  Thank  Heaven ! ' '  took  a  deep 
breath,  and  turned  slowly  about  to  the  waiting 
girl.  His  gaze  was  impersonal  and  abstracted ; 
he  scarcely  seemed  conscious  of  her  presence  as 
he  stood  there,  deep  in  troubled  thought. 

"Well!"  she  whispered  at  last,  struggling  to 
keep  some  tremour  of  dread  from  her  voice. 

"I  was  right,"  he  said,  with  the  look  of  per 
plexity  still  in  his  studious  eyes.  ''Eighty-eight 
boxes  of  fluxing-slag  have  been  passed  out  from 
the  hold  and  piled  along  the  pier.  They've  been 
standing  there  covered  with  a  tarpaulin." 

"Is  any  one  there?"  she  asked. 

"Five  of  De  Brigard's  men — four  men  and  an 
officer.  The  four  men  are  moving  those  boxes 
now.  They  are  lifting  them  in  through  the  east 
door  of  the  weigh-scales  shed.  The  south  door 


THE  DEAD-LINE  291 

has  been  kept  shut;  and  the  United  Fruit  Con 
cern's  track-motor  has  been  kept  there  waiting. 
They  have  divided  the  eighty-eight  boxes  into 
two  lots.  They  intend  to  take  out  only  one-half 
of  the  shipment  to-night.  I  counted  the  boxes 
from  under  the  life-boat.  Forty- three  were  left ; 
that  means  they  are  taking  off  forty-five." 

"That  means  almost  three  hundred  thousand 
rounds  of  ammunition!"  she  exclaimed,  with  a 
little  hopeless  gesture  of  the  hands. 

"The  Remington  rifles,  of  course,  they  can't 
touch.  The  forty-five  boxes,  I  imagine,  have  com 
pletely  loaded  the  body  of  their  car,  filled  it 
up!" 

"But  what  are  we  to  do?" 

He  looked  at  her,  and  laughed  a  little,  reck 
lessly. 

"They  have  to  run  those  boxes  of  slag  out 
through  Puerto  Locombia  to  De  Brigard's  head 
quarters  to-night.  They  have  to  get  them  out 
there  quietly,  very  quietly.  The  track,  doubt 
less,  has  been  cleared  for  them.  It  lias  to  be 
cleared  for  them,  for  even  an  eighty-horse 
power  motor  can't  side-track  an  ore-train  or 
switch  a  string  of  banana-cars.  And  there  is  no 
longer  any  telegraph  between  this  port  and  the 
inland  points  they  have  to  pass." 

"No,  there  is  no  telegraph,"  she  said,  still 
at  sea. 


292  THE  DEAD-LINE 

"There  are  four  men  and  an  officer,"  lie 
mused  irrelevantly.  Then  he  looked  down  at  his 
watch,  and  turned  abruptly  to  the  girl  again. 

'"You  have  a  revolver?"  he  asked.  She 
showed  him  the  weapon.  He  looked  it  over,  saw 
that  it  was  fully  loaded,  and  handed  it  back  to 
her. 

"Have  you  ever  learned  to  use  it?"  he  asked. 
She  looked  at  him  with  growing  wonder. 

"I  don't  think  I  could  kill  a  man,"  she  said, 
very  quietly  and  very  slowly. 

"But  could  you  protect  yourself,  at  a  pinch? 
Could  you  shoot  round  a  little  with  it,  I  mean?" 

"I  have  learned  to  shoot,"  she  said,  white- 
lipped. 

"Good;  then  that  makes  three!"  he  ex 
claimed.  Her  wide  eyes,  following  him  as  he 
crossed  to  his  trunk  and  opened  it,  detected  the 
fact  that,  for  all  his  assumption  of  jocularity, 
his  hand  was  shaking  a  little  as  he  held  Gan- 
ley's  huge  revolver  and  his  own  under  the  elec 
tric  light.  He  first  saw  that  these  two  revolvers 
were  fully  loaded.  Then  he  overturned  a  green 
cardboard  box  and  counted  his  cartridges. 
There  were  one  hundred  and  eighty-three,  all 
told. 

"What  must  I  do?"  she  asked,  as  bravely  as 
she  could,  taking  the  handful  of  cartridges  he 
had  doled  out  for  her. 


THE  DEAD-LINE  293 

He  stood  once  more  studying  her  with  his  im 
personal  and  abstracted  eyes. 

"Could  you  run  a  motor,  a  track-motor  like 
this?"  he  asked,  with  a  side-jerk  of  his  head 
toward  the  pier. 

"I   have   run   one,   often,"   was   her   quiet 

answer.    "There   is  no   steering-wheel.    It   is 

simply  a  starting  and  speed-lever  and  the  brakes 

—though  we  always  took  a  boy,  to  blow,  to  keep 

the  tracks  clear!" 

"The  boy  will  not  be  needed,  to-night,"  was 
his  grim  rejoinder,  as  he  once  more  studied  his 
watch.  She  drew  back  from  him,  slowly,  step  by 
step,  aghast. 

"You  are  not  going  to  try  to  take  that  motor 
from  them?"  she  asked. 

"We've  got  to  take  that  motor.  It's  our  only 
way  out.  And  with  your  help  I  can  do  it." 

"But  these  sentries !  And  there  are  five  men! 
And  forty-eight  miles  of  country  held  by  De 
Brigard!" 

"Listen,"  he  said,  so  simply,  so  matter-of- 
fact  in  the  facing  of  the  problem,  that  his  very 
quietness  brought  her  stampeding  thoughts 
back  to  her.  "There  are  just  two  danger-zones. 
The  first  is  in  the  weigh-scales  shed,  where 
those  five  men  will  be.  The  second  will  be  in 
De  Brigard 's  lines." 


294  THE  DEAD-LINE 

"Yes,"  she  said,  doing  her  best  to  meet  his 
mood  of  calm-eyed  practicality. 

"The  officer  will  be  the  only  man  armed,  of 
those  five.  I'll  attend  to  him.  Before  the  other 
four  can  get  to  their  carbines  we'll  be  off — 
you'll  be  off,  I  mean,  for  remember,  whatever 
happens,  you  are  to  get  to  that  starting-lever 
and  get  away  with  the  car.  I'll  be  holding  the 
men  off  until  we're  clear.'* 

"Clear  of  what?" 

"Clear  of  that  shed — and  of  the  wharf. 
Then,  once  out  of  the  town,  we've  got  a  clear 
run  until  we  strike  De  Brigard's  outposts.  It 
will  be  simply  a  matter  of  rushing  them — and 
trusting  to  luck." 

"It's  hopeless,"  she  sobbed. 

"To  stay  six  more  hours  on  this  steamer  is 
more  hopeless!" 

"Even  if  we  did  get  through,"  she  tried  to 
explain,  "we  couldn't  get  into  Guariqui.  They 
would  fire  on  a  car  breaking  into  their  lines— 
they  would  kill  us  both,  before  they  could  under 
stand!" 

He  shook  his  head  dissentingly. 

"We'll  have  to  warn  them  in  some  way 

that  is  only  one  of  the  smaller 

problems ! ' ' 

He  caught  up  his  coat,  and  dropped  a  revolver 


THE  DEAD-LINE  295 

into  each  side  pocket,  and  after  them  the  loose 
cartridges,  in  handfuls. 

Then,  after  another  moment's  thought,  he 
crossed  the  cabin  again,  and  leaned  over  the 
open  trunk. 

"I've  got  a  pocketful  of  milk  tablets  here," 
he  explained,  "and  a  pound  or  two  of  German 
army  chocolate." 

He  swung  about  and  looked  at  her,  with  his 
almost  boyish  smile. 

"And  I'm  terribly  sorry,  but  it  isn't  sweet 
ened!"  he  said.  Although  there  was  no  answer 
ing  smile  on  her  face,  he  thought  he  saw  a  fleet 
ing  look  of  gratitude  in  her  eyes,  as  though  she 
was  struggling  to  thank  him  for  even  his  foolish 
and  futile  efforts  at  lightheartedness.  And 
while  she  still  gravely  looked  up  at  him  he 
slipped  his  huge  wicker-covered  brandy-flask 
into  his  hip  pocket,  and  once  more  consulted  his 
watch. 

"Our  time  is  up!"  he  said,  with  every  sem 
blance  of  levity  suddenly  fading  from  his  face. 
It  tortured  him  to  see  such  resigned  hopeless 
ness  in  her  quiet  eyes,  but  he  knew  it  was  peril 
ous  to  surrender  to  his  feelings. 

"I  know  it's  hard,"  was  all  he  said,  "but  it 
has  to  be  done." 

"I  understand,"  she  said. 

He  turned,  with  his  hand  on  the  light-switch. 


296  THE  DEAD-LINE 

"Is  there  anything  you  feel  you  ought  to  take 
along  with  you?" 

"Nothing,"  she  whispered. 

"Then  are  you  ready?" 

"Quite  ready,"  was  her  answer. 

She  heard  the  snap  of  the  light-switch.  She 
heard  him  quietly  turn  the  key  in  the  cabin  door. 
She  knew,  as  she  stood  with  her  hand  on  his 
sleeve,  that  he  was  listening  and  waiting  for 
the  sentry's  steps.  He  waited  until  they  passed 
and  died  away  toward  the  bow  of  the  ship. 
Then  he  noiselessly  opened  the  door  and  drew 
her  out  after  him  into  the  blackness  of  the 
balmy,  musky-odoured  midnight  air. 


CHAPTER  XXVn 

THE  FLIGHT 

THEY  crept  across  the  deck,  hand  in  hand, 
to  where  the  shadowy  outlines  of  one  of  the 
life-boats  blocked  their  path.  They  slipped  in 
under  the  bow  of  this  life-boat,  groping  their 
way  to  the  davit,  where  the  ship's  rail  ended. 
Before  them  was  a  drop  of  six  feet,  from  the 
ship's  deck  to  the  string-piece  of  the  pier, 
against  which  the  rusty  side-plates  were  creak 
ing  and  groaning. 

McKinnon  made  a  sudden  motion  for  the  girl 
to  wait,  for  dark  figures  were  moving  about  on 
the  pier  below.  She  could  make  out  the  gloomy 
mass  of  the  weigh-scales  shed,  its  oxid-red  paint 
leaving  it  black  by  night.  She  could  see  that 
the  west  door  of  the  shed  was  open,  and  that 
a  figure  stood  just  inside  this  door,  holding  a 
lantern.  She  knew  it  was  the  officer,  for  she 
could  see  the  light  glimmer  on  the  sword-scab 
bard  that  moved  back  and  forth  with  every 
movement  of  his  body.  She  could  see,  too,  that 

297 


298  THE  FLIGHT 

he  was  contentedly  smoking  a  cigarette.  She 
could  even  smell  the  tobacco  smoke,  mingled 
with  the  heavy  odour  of  a  decaying  shipment  of 
bananas  that  rotted  farther  out  along  the  pier- 
edge. 

She  could  hear  low  voices,  now  and  then, 
speaking  cautiously  in  Spanish,  as  two  bare 
footed  soldiers  padded  past  the  swinging  lan 
tern,  in  through  the  door.  They  carried  a  heavy 
box  that  reminded  her  of  a  baby's  coffin;  and 
as  they  came  out  again  two  others  passed  them 
on  their  way  in. 

Then  she  felt  McKinnon  touch  her  arm,  warn- 
ingly,  and  heard  his  quick  whisper  for  her  to  be 
ready.  She  could  also  hear  the  slow  tread  of 
the  sentry's  feet  behind  her,  to  the  north  of 
the  shielding  life-boat. 

"Now's  our  chance,'*  McKinnon  was  saying 
in  her  ear.  He  dropped  silently  over  the  deck- 
edge.  She  could  just  make  out  the  white  patch 
of  his  face  as  he  stood  there  waiting  to  lift  her 
down. 

She  knew  no  emotion,  beyond  a  vague  and 
persistent  anxiety,  as  she  felt  his  arms  clasp  her 
surrendering  body.  The  moment's  intimate 
contact  brought  her  neither  joy  nor  repugnance. 
She  only  knew  that  McKinnon  was  leading  her 
by  the  hand  to  the  far  end  of  the  shed  that  faced 
the  west.  Then  he  took  away  his  hand,  and 


THE  FLIGHT  299 

drew  a  revolver  from  his  pocket.  It  struck  her 
that  the  odour  from  the  rotting  banana-pile  was 
becoming  almost  unendurable. 

She  followed  him  blindly,  her  outstretched 
fingers  keeping  in  touch  with  his  coat-sleeve. 
She  saw  him  step  in  over  the  railway-tracks 
that  were  bridged  by  the  shed.  A  broken  right 
angle  of  light,  from  the  lantern  within,  outlined 
the  huge,  loosely  fitting  door  that  covered  the 
west  end  of  the  black-boarded  building.  In  this 
huge  door  a  smaller  one  had  at  some  time  been 
cut;  it  was  through  this  smaller  door  that 
McKinnon  led  her,  cautiously,  noiselessly. 

The  track-motor  stood  backed  almost  against 
the  eastern  end  of  the  shed,  next  to  the  door 
through  which  the  barefooted  soldiers  were 
carrying  the  heavy  boxes.  The  officer  with  the 
lantern  still  kept  his  position,  just  inside  this 
door,  placidly  smoking  his  cigarette. 

The  girl  and  McKinnon  had  to  stoop  low  to 
keep  in  the  shadow  of  the  square-topped,  heavy- 
bodied  motor-car.  They  crouched  in  under  its 
acetylenes,  close  to  the  rust-covered,  many- 
dented  circulating  coil,  as  a  cartridge-box  was 
lifted  into  the  body  of  the  car  by  the  two  bare 
footed  carriers,  with  a  muffled  thump  as  the 
weight  was  released,  and  then  the  grating  of 
wood  against  wood  as  the  box  was  pushed  and 
twisted  and  jerked  into  position.  They  could 


300  THE  FLIGHT 

hear  the  sigh  of  one  of  the  men,  the  pad  of  bare 
feet,  and  the  nonchalant  "  Forty- three,  forty- 
four"  of  the  counting  officer. 

It  was  then  that  McKinnon  lifted  her  bodily 
into  the  driving-seat,  whispering  to  her  to  sit 
low,  even  catching  at  her  outstretched  hand 
and  conveying  it  to  the  starting-lever. 

11  Start  as  the  door  opens,"  she  heard  him 
whisper,  and  she  knew  that  he  had  crept  for 
ward  again,  and  that  she  was  alone  in  the  car. 
She  tried  to  school  herself  to  calmness,  to  coerce 
her  attention  on  which  was  the  starting-lever 
and  which  the  speed-lever,  to  force  into  life  the 
hope  that  all  might  still  turn  out  well.  Once 
free  of  that  door,  she  felt,  she  could  breathe 
again. 

She  waited,  straining  through  the  dim  light, 
wondering  what  kept  McKinnon  so  long. 

Then  the  quietness  was  broken  by  the  sud 
den  sound  of  metal  rasping  on  metal,  of  a  fall 
ing  piece  of  wood  that  echoed  cavernously 
through  the  high-roofed  shed. 

"Who  is  there?"  cried  the  startled  officer,  in 
Spanish,  as  he  swung  about  with  his  lantern. 
He  whipped  out  a  revolver  from  his  belt  as  he 
repeated  the  challenge.  The  door  had  not 
opened ;  they  were  shut  in,  trapped. 

The  officer  sprang  forward,  holding  the  lan 
tern  out  at  his  side  as  he  ran.  The  girl's  heart 


THE  FLIGHT  301 

stopped  beating :  it  was  over — it  was  the  end  of 
everything ! 

Then  a  sudden  roar  of  sound  filled  the  shed, 
followed  by  the  crash  of  glass.  It  was  a  shot 
from  McKinnon's  revolver,  a  deliberate  and 
well-put  shot  that  shattered  the  lantern  and  left 
the  place  in  darkness. 

"Quick — come  ahead!"  called  McKinnon,  out 
of  the  darkness.  As  he  spoke  the  officer 
emptied  his  revolver  toward  the  sound  of  the 
intruder's  voice.  The  shots,  in  rapid  succes 
sion,  filled  the  shed  with  tumult,  left  the  air 
stifling  with  powder  smoke.  Quick  calls  and 
counter-calls  came  from  the  ship.  The  four 
barefooted  soldiers,  springing  for  their  car 
bines,  charged  in  through  the  narrow  east  door. 
They  fired  as  they  came,  but  only  into  utter 
darkness. 

"Come  ahead!"  called  McKinnon  still  again 
out  of  that  darkness — she  could  not  tell  where. 
"Sit  low,  and  take  the  door  on  the  run!" 

She  hesitated,  bewildered,  for  the  command 
seemed  a  foolish  one.  The  carbines  were  spit 
ting  close  about  her.  She  heard  the  cries  of 
alarm,  the  deafening  detonations,  the  crash  of 
wood. 

"For  God's  sake,  come  ahead!"  implored 
McKinnon.  She  knew  he  was  still  safe.  She 
no  longer  hesitated.  She  threw  the  starting- 


302  THE  FLIGHT 

lever  back,  threw  the  speed  out  full,  and 
crouched  low  in  the  bottom  of  the  car  front. 
She  knew  that  somebody  was  clubbing  at  the 
seat  above  her  with  a  musket-end.  She  could 
hear  the  guns  of  the  Laminian's  sentries  giving 
the  alarm.  Then  she  closed  her  eyes,  and 
crouched  lower,  for  she  knew  the  car  was  under 
way. 

It  had  some  fifteen  or  sixteen  feet  of  head 
way  before  it  struck  the  huge  pine  door  that 
barred  the  tracks.  There  was  a  sudden  rend 
ing  and  splintering  of  pine,  a  crunching  of 
wood,  and  the  car  had  gone  through  the  door 
like  a  hound  through  a  paper  hoop. 

McKinnon  swung  up  beside  her  as  the  door 
went  down.  He  was  astride  her  body  almost, 
fighting  and  panting,  for  a  swarthy-faced  Lo- 
combian  was  on  the  car-step,  making  frenzied 
thrusts  at  her  with  his  carbine-end.  Another 
was  on  the  cartridge-boxes,  and  he  shot  once, 
scorching  the  operator's  face  with  his  powder- 
flash  as  it  passed  him.  He  had  no  time  for  a 
second  shot,  for  McKinnon 's  hand  went  up  and 
his  revolver  barked.  The  carbine  fell  forward 
into  the  seat  between  them.  The  Locombian 
himself  rolled  sideways,  to  the  left,  with  a  howl 
of  pain.  He  staggered  to  his  feet,  swayed  there 
a  second,  and  then  toppled  backward  over  the 
boxes,  and  fell  from  the  car. 


THE  FLIGHT  303 

Another  man  took  his  place  as  he  fell. 
McKinnon  sprang  for  him,  catching  and  jerk 
ing  upward  the  barrel  of  his  carbine  as  he  fired, 
tearing  a  hole  through  the  car-roof. 

Then  the  two  men  closed,  and  as  they  fought 
and  tore  at  each  other  in  the  swerving  and 
pounding  car,  the  sentries  from  the  ship's  bow 
kept  firing  along  the  dark  track. 

Then  a  third  man,  the  officer  who  had  held 
the  lantern,  swung  from  the  now  racing  car's 
hand-rail  forward,  until  he  reached  the  driving- 
seat.  He  had  taken  out  his  sword — the  girl 
could  see  the  white  steel  glimmer  in  the  dim 
light.  The  thought  flashed  through  her,  as  she 
saw  it,  that  swords  were  foolish  and  obsolete 
weapons.  She  had  always  looked  on  them  as 
mere  ornaments  of  dress,  as  useless  as  an 
epaulette.  But  now  she  knew  that  she  had  been 
mistaken,  for  she  could  see  the  agile  little  officer 
whipping  and  slashing  with  his  naked  blade  as 
he  climbed  and  worked  his  way  up  to  the  box- 
pile,  and  the  nearness  of  that  glimmering  steel 
intimidated  her  even  more  than  a  carbine-flash 
could. 

It  must  have  been  several  seconds  before  she 
realised  that  the  slashing  sword-end  was  meant 
for  her,  that  the  frenzied  little  figure  was  beat 
ing  and  prodding  through  the  darkness  in  an 
effort  to  reach  her  own  shrinking  body.  Me- 


304  THE  FLIGHT 

Kinnon's  revolver  lay  in  the  bottom  of  the  car; 
the  girl  could  feel  it  with  her  shaking  hands. 
There  was  only  one  thing  to  do. 

She  quickly  raised  it,  closed  her  eyes,  and 
fired.  The  shot  went  wide,  for  she  had  aimed 
it  low,  at  his  knees.  But  it  served  to  fix  her 
position  in  the  mind  of  her  assailant ;  and  again 
she  saw  the  naked  steel  flash  and  shimmer  in 
the  darkness.  She  fired  again,  before  it  had 
time  to  reach  her. 

She  knew  the  bullet  had  broken  his  arm,  even 
before  his  grasp  on  the  hand-rail  relaxed.  She 
saw  him  sway  back,  helplessly,  and  then  topple 
and  fall  outward,  against  the  stringpiece  of  the 
pier.  She  stood  up,  and  looked  back  for  her 
companion.  She  could  just  make  out  the  two 
men  still  struggling  back  and  forth,  doggedly, 
determinedly.  Then  she  heard  a  short  scream 
of  agony,  for  one  of  the  strugglers  had  caught 
a  forefinger  of  the  other  and  levered  it  reso 
lutely  back,  until  it  snapped  and  broke  at  the 
third  joint.  Then,  even  before  that  cry  of  pain 
died  away,  she  saw  one  man  raise  the  other 
up,  bodily,  and  bring  him  down  with  all  his  re 
maining  strength  on  the  close-packed  cartridge- 
boxes.  The  blow  seemed  to  stun  him;  before 
his  senses  came  back  to  him  his  panting  adver 
sary  had  taken  advantage  of  that  helplessness, 


THE  FLIGHT  805 

and  was  rolling  and  pushing  him  out  from  the 
back  of  the  racing  car. 

He  remained  so  long  there  at  the  rear  of  the 
car,  gasping  and  fighting  for  breath  again,  that 
the  waiting  girl  was  in  doubt  as  to  who  had  been 
the  victor.  Then  he  called  to  her,  and  she 
understood. 

She  lowered  the  revolver,  slowly,  as  he 
clambered  weakly  back  over  the  boxes,  and 
dropped  in  the  seat  beside  her. 

"Are  you  hurt?"  he  gasped. 

"No!"  she  said.  But  the  sound  was  more 
like  a  sob.  The  siren  of  the  Laminian  was  now 
screaming  and  bellowing  out  through  the  vel 
vety  black  quietness  of  the  midnight  waterfront. 
The  sentries  on  the  ship  were  still  shooting 
after  them,  foolishly,  and  adding  to  the  inter 
mittent  uproar.  But  the  car,  by  this  time,  had 
covered  more  than  half  of  the  mile-long  pier. 
A  land-breeze,  balmy  and  many-odoured,  blew 
in  their  faces.  On  either  side  of  them,  through 
the  darkness,  pulsed  the  ghostly  white  lacework 
of  the  beach-surf. 

"Thank  God,  we're  free!"  said  McKinnon 
devoutly. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  COUNTEK-FOKCES 


cry  of  thankfulness  was  cut 
short  by  an  exclamation  from  the  girl  at  his 
side  as  the  car  rocked  and  swayed  along  the  un 
even  pier-track. 

"Look!"  she  gasped.  "They  are  closing  the 
gates  ahead  of  us!  They  are  shutting  us  in!" 

McKinnon  peered  through  the  darkness.  He 
could  see  a  number  of  moving  lights;  they 
shifted  about  through  the  gloom,  small  and  rest 
less,  like  fire-flies.  He  could  also  make  out  the 
shadowy  lines  of  a  building  or  two.  Where 
the  track  ran  between  these  buildings,  at  the 
end  of  the  pier,  a  white-painted  wooden  gate 
had  been  swung  and  locked  across  the  rails  to 
stop  the  car.  He  could  see  the  light  from  the 
restlessly  moving  lanterns  refracted  from  its 
painted  slats,  from  the  swords  of  the  officers 
and  the  rifles  of  the  waiting  soldiers. 

He  knew  what  it  meant,  but  it  was  too  late 
for  half-measures.  With  the  quickness  of 

306 


THE  COUNTER-FOKCES  307 

thought  he  jerked  down  two  of  the  heavy  cart 
ridge-boxes,  to  the  left  side  of  the  driving- seat, 
as  a  barricade  against  a  chance  bullet.  He  felt 
sure  it  would  be  only  a  chance  bullet;  his  con 
tempt  for  both  the  arms  and  the  marksman 
ship  of  the  Latin- American  was  of  long  stand 
ing.  He  hauled  and  twisted  and  rolled  two 
boxes  as  quickly  down  on  the  right-hand  end 
of  the  driving-seat,  calling  to  the  girl  at  his 
side  to  crouch  down  between  his  knees  as  he 
reached  out  and  took  the  speed-lever  in  his  own 
hand. 

Alicia  had  instinctively  slowed  down  the  car, 
for  the  moving  lights  were  now  not  more  than 
two  hundred  feet  before  them.  McKinnon,  with 
his  foot  held  ready  on  the  brakes,  threw  the 
motor  out  to  full  speed.  He  no  longer  felt 
afraid  of  the  flimsy  wooden  gate.  "What  he 
feared  was  a  tie  across  the  track  or  a  switch 
thrown  open  to  derail  him.  And  any  moment, 
he  felt,  as  the  heavy  car  gathered  speed  and 
once  more  hurled  itself  forward,  they  would 
start  shooting  at  him  with  their  pot-metal 
rifles. 

He  crouched  lower  and  lower  between  his 
barricade  of  boxes  as  the  car  swung  in  toward 
the  shadowy  pier-end,  so  that  his  stooping  body 
forced  the  girl  to  the  very  floor  of  the  driving- 
seat.  He  saw  a  red  tongue  or  two  of  flame  dart 


308  THE  COUNTER-FORCES 

out  of  the  blackness  ahead  of  him,  and  he  knew 
that  the  firing  had  begun.  He  could  hear  the 
whine  of  the  bullets  as  they  passed  overhead; 
he  could  hear  the  lead  ping  and  pound  against 
the  car-sides.  He  had  little  fear  for  the  boxes 
of  ammunition  surrounding  him;  the  cartridges 
were  covered  enough  by  the  powdered  fluxing- 
slag  to  be  cushioned  against  concussion.  Once, 
indeed,  a  bullet  splintered  against  the  wood  of 
the  very  box  against  which  he  leaned.  He  held 
his  breath  and  waited,  racking  and  swinging 
onward  toward  the  moving  lights. 

But  still  the  firing  kept  up.  The  white- 
painted  gate  before  him  seemed  a  mirage, 
which  receded  as  he  advanced.  It  seemed  that 
he  would  never  get  to  it.  And  he  knew  what  a 
bullet  might  do  at  any  moment.  He  carried  no 
lights,  and  he  felt  certain  that  as  yet  the  men 
attacking  him  had  nothing  against  which  to  cen 
tralise  their  fire.  But  as  he  came  closer,  he 
knew  that  this  advantage  would  be  lost.  Then 
it  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  a  show  of  re 
sistance  would  be  a  possible  help  to  him.  He 
had  no  time  to  feel  for  one  of  the  carbines  that 
still  lay  somewhere  about  the  bottom  of  the  car. 
But  his  groping  fingers  found  the  revolver  on 
the  car-seat  cushion  behind  them. 

Before  his  arm  could  go  up,  however,  he  knew 
that  it  was  too  late.  The  fire  was  pouring  in 


THE  COUNTER-FORCES  309 

on  them  broadside;  he  could  hear  the  whistle 
of  the  bullets  and  the  splintering  of  the  car-hood 
sides.  He  had  ridden  down  the  lights  and  the 
waiting  men. 

The  stabbing  and  jetting  and  drifting  powder 
smoke  obscured  the  gate  so  that  they  were  upon 
it  before  he  knew  it.  There  was  a  second  rend 
ing  and  snapping  of  wood,  a  vision  of  flying 
white  pickets,  a  cry  from  the  soldiers  on  either 
side  of  him.  But  the  car  had  passed  its  second 
barrier,  carrying  away  one  end  of  the  frame 
work  across  its  battered  lamps. 

McKinnon  took  a  deep  breath  and  waited  with 
his  foot  still  on  the  brake,  oppressed  by  the  ter 
ror  of  a  sudden  derailment.  But  the  great  car 
kept  to  the  tracks  and  went  thundering  in  be 
tween  the  shadowy  buildings  that  mercifully 
shut  them  off  from  the  grilling  rifle-fire  of  De 
Brigard's  men.  He  knew,  by  the  passing  of 
the  thunderous  echo,  that  they  were  in  the  open 
again,  circling  up  through  the  scattering  lines 
of  mud  huts.  The  sound  of  a  shot  or  two  still 
came  to  his  ears.  He  could  feel  the  girl  move ; 
she  was  trying  to  rise  to  the  seat.  But  he  held 
her  there  between  his  knees  as  the  car  con 
tinued  to  plunge  and  sway  along  the  crooked 
tracks.  Now  and  then  the  howling  of  dogs  came 
to  his  ears,  breaking  through  the  continuous 
monotone  of  the  wind's  rush  past  his  face, 


310  THE  COUNTER-FOKCES 

straining  and  peering  into  the  darkness  ahead. 
Far  out  in  the  roadstead  the  Laminian's  siren 
was  still  bellowing  and  roaring.  An  answering 
steam-whistle,  somewhere  in  the  east,  took  up 
the  stentorian  complaint;  lights  began  to  ap 
pear  in  the  houses  of  the  wakened  town. 

Alicia,  still  pinned  down  by  his  knees,  was 
struggling  and  calling  to  him.  He  knew  that 
she  was  safe,  that  she  was  still  unharmed,  and 
that  was  all  he  cared  to  know. 

"Hurry!"  she  called  to  him. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  leaning  closer  to  catch 
her  words. 

"We  circle  about  the  town,"  she  was  calling 
into  his  ear.  "We  have  to  come  out  by  Point 
Asuncion,  next  to  the  new  hospital.  There  will 
be  guards  there.  They  can  cross  from  the  pier- 
end  almost  as  soon  as  we  can  circle  around!" 

"It's  out  to  the  last  notch,"  McKinnon  ex 
plained,  and  she  had  to  steady  herself  in  the 
reeling  car  by  suddenly  catching  at  his  arm. 

"They'll  try  to  stop  us  there!"  she  called 
out  to  him  once  more. 

"They  can't!"  he  called  back  recklessly,  al 
most  drunkenly,  for  the  speed  of  their  escape 
seemed  to  have  gone  to  his  head.  "They 
can't!" 

He  suddenly  forced  her  down  to  her  former 
position,  between  his  sheltering  knees,  for  his 


THE  COUNTEE-FOECES  311 

straining  eyes  had  once  more  caught  sight  of 
moving  lanterns  ahead. 

The  girl  was  right !  They  had  passed  through 
the  heart  of  the  town,  and  were  once  more  on 
its  ragged  outskirts.  They  were  following  a 
little  embankment  of  made  land,  of  a  filled-in 
swamp-side,  littered  with  cinders  and  scrap- 
iron.  McKinnon  could  see  the  oily  glimmer  of 
water  beneath  him,  to  the  right.  To  the  left, 
the  ghostlike  chimney  and  walls  of  a  power 
house  floated  past,  and  were  lost  behind  them, 
as  the  car  rumbled  over  a  culvert  and  ground 
and  bit  with  its  wheel-flanges  on  the  curve  that 
took  them  sweeping  in  again  toward  Point 
Asuncion.  But  all  the  while  his  eyes  were  on 
the  moving  lights  ahead. 

Suddenly  he  uttered  a  startled  cry,  a  cry  that 
had  more  resentment  than  fear  in  it.  Then  he 
stood  up  in  his  seat,  reaching  back  for  one  of 
the  carbines  as  he  rose.  For  the  drifting  and 
shifting  lights  had  defined  themselves.  He  had 
made  out  the  meaning  of  the  movement  that  he 
had  to  face. 

It  was  a  body  of  uniformed  men  carrying  a 
bridge-girder  of  iron.  And  he  knew  that  girder 
was  meant  to  stop  his  flight.  His  last  doubt 
as  to  his  enemy's  intention  disappeared  with 
the  sudden  pinging  of  a  rifle-bullet  through  the 
darkness  above  him. 


312  THE  COUNTER-FORCES 

He  ducked  low  as  he  heard  the  sound,  and 
brought  his  carbine  into  play.  Throwing  the 
old-fashioned  magazine-lever  down  and  back, 
he  took  quick  but  careful  aim  at  the  moving 
lanterns,  light  by  light.  It  was  not  until  his 
magazine  was  empty  that  he  dropped  the 
weapon  and  caught  up  his  revolver.  His  shots 
were  going  wild,  he  knew,  but  he  did  not  stop. 
He  saw  the  moving  lights  come  to  a  halt,  al 
most  beside  the  track-edge.  He  saw  one  of  them 
go  down  and  scatter,  and  the  oil  break  into 
flames.  He  saw  the  remaining  lights  waver, 
draw  back,  and  disperse.  And  the  girder  fell 
as  the  men  wavered  and  retreated.  But  it  did 
not  fall  on  the  rails. 

He  swept  past  where  it  lay  beside  the  burn 
ing  oil,  six  good  feet  from  the  track.  He  heard 
the  hasty  volley  they  tried  to  pour  in  on  him, 
broadside,  as  he  went.  But  they  had  nothing 
more  than  a  racing  shadow  for  a  target,  and 
the  car  had  thundered  past  before  they  could 
make  a  second  move.  He  felt  the  girl  clasping 
his  knee;  whether  from  fright  or  weakness  or 
gratitude  at  their  deliverance  he  could  not  tell. 
Nor  did  he  care  to  ask  as  he  helped  her  up  into 
the  seat. 

They  were  clear  of  the  town  now,  and  in  the 
open  country.  A  long  level  stretch  of  swamp 
land,  musky-smelling,  miasmal,  blanketed  with 


THE  COUNTER-FORCES  313 

a  feverous  night-mist,  stretched  before  them. 
McKinnon  knew  that  no  courier  could  overtake 
them.  He  remembered  that  no  wires  ran  from 
Puerto  Locombia  inland,  that  the  coast  was  cut 
off  from  the  hinterland,  that  they  were  com 
paratively  safe  until  they  had  climbed  the 
Height  of  Land  and  Guariqui  itself  came  in 
sight.  Then  there  would  be  the  Liberal  army's 
lines  to  run,  De  Brigard's  sentinels  to  pass. 
Then,  if  all  went  well,  their  journey  would  be 
at  an  end.  Getting  into  Guariqui  would  mean 
one  last  risk  and  one  last  fight;  but  in  the  mean 
time  they  were  safe. 

He  lessened  the  mad  speed  of  the  car  a  little, 
wondering,  for  the  first  time,  if  they  carried 
enough  gasoline  to  see  them  to  their  journey's 
end.  The  more  he  thought  over  that  problem 
of  gasoline  supply  the  more  it  disturbed  him. 
With  his  tank  once  empty  they  would  be 
stranded  in  a  hostile  country,  in  which  there 
would  be  no  hiding,  from  which  there  could  be 
no  escape.  The  mere  terrifying  thought  of  such 
a  contingency  caused  him  to  throw  out  the 
speed-lever  a  notch  or  two.  He  noticed,  as  they 
plunged  on  and  on  through  the  quietness  of  the 
night,  that  his  hands  were  cut  and  scratched, 
that  his  face  was  caked  with  dried  blood,  that 
his  body  was  sore  and  stiff.  But  deep  with 
in  him  was  a  persistent  and  unquenchable  glow 


314  THE  COUNTER-FORCES 

of  exhilaration,  something  more  than  mere 
speed-drunkenness  and  mere  thankfulness  for 
delivery  from  past  dangers. 

It  was  the  world-old  and  primordial  joy  in 
accomplishment,  the  intoxication  of  conquest 
implanted  in  him  by  a  thousand  fighting  ances 
tors.  And  he  felt  at  his  side  the  tired  and  over 
taxed  body  of  the  woman  for  whom  he  was  bat 
tling;  and  as  she  swayed  there  with  the  sway 
ing  of  the  car,  letting  her  weight  fall  against 
his  shoulder  and  then  recede  from  it,  this  feel 
ing  that  might  have  been  nothing  more  than 
pagan  exultation  was  touched  and  transformed 
into  something  higher.  The  air  beat  against 
their  faces,  side  by  side;  nocturnal  moths  flat 
tened  against  their  clothing  and  were  held  there 
by  the  wind. 

McKinnon  could  see  that  they  were  beginning 
to  climb,  now  that  the  swamp-land  had  been  left 
behind,  and  that  leaves  and  palm-fronds  were 
rustling  on  either  side  of  them.  The  air  seemed 
to  grow  clearer,  the  darkness  less  abysmal. 
He  could  see  that  they  were  at  last  on  the  edge 
of  the  banana-belt,  still  climbing  and  pounding 
and  swaying  upward.  Their  path  was  now  a 
lonely  aisle  through  the  forest  of  rustling 
greenery  that  crowded  up  to  the  very  track- 
edge;  sometimes  a  leaf  swept  the  car-roof.  At 
times  they  could  hear  the  ripple  of  water  in  the 


THE  COUNTER-FORCES  315 

irrigation  ditches.  Once  a  light  swung  across 
the  track,  a  mile  ahead.  It  brought  the  lever 
out  to  full  speed  again,  and  a  carbine  ready, 
and  the  two  figures  in  the  car  lower  down  be 
hind  their  barricade.  A  voice  shouted  to  them, 
petulantly,  out  of  the  darkness  as  they  swept 
past,  but  that  was  all. 

They  were  grinding  and  screeching  on  a 
curve  again,  before  McKinnon  could  lessen  the 
speed.  As  they  swept  around  the  sharp  quar 
ter-circle,  the  car  descended  on  what  must  have 
been  a  grazing  burro  or  a  steer.  The  heavy 
framework  shuddered  with  the  force  of  the  im 
pact;  there  was  an  animal-like  sound,  half- 
groan,  half-grunt,  as  the  obstructing  black  mass 
was  thrown  aside.  McKinnon  felt  a  spurt  of 
blood  flung  up  in  his  face,  and  the  next  mo 
ment  held  his  breath,  for  he  knew  they  had  sped 
out  on  a  cobweb  of  steel  that  bridged  the 
canonlike  bed  of  a  river.  But  still  they  kept  on, 
up  and  up,  until  the  gradient  began  to  tell  on 
the  motor  and  the  air  grew  perceptibly  cooler. 
Forest  trees  were  about  them  now,  and  they 
could  hear  the  startled  call  of  birds  and  the  cry 
of  monkeys.  Once  a  jaguar  called  out  through 
the  night,  and  once,  as  they  swept  past  a  sleep 
ing  village  of  little  white  huts,  they  saw  the 
glow  of  coals  in  an  open  mud  oven. 

But  still  the  flying  wheels  carried  them  up 


316  THE  COUNTEE-FOECES 

and  up  until  they  could  see  behind  them  the 
vague  glimmer  of  the  Caribbean,  and  the  star 
light  grew  so  clear  that  McKinnon  could  make 
out  the  woman's  locked  hands  in  her  lap  at 
his  side.  He  felt  her  shiver  with  the  cold,  and 
forced  her  to  drink  a  little  of  the  liquor  from 
his  brandy-flask.  Then  he  groped  about,  look 
ing  for  a  covering,  for  he  knew  that  as  the  alti- 
titude  grew  greater  the  cold  would  increase. 
Under  the  seat-cushions  he  found  an  oilskin 
coat,  and  helped  her  into  it.  The  coat  was  much 
too  large  for  her,  but  he  doubled  it  over,  in 
front,  and  held  it  in  with  a  cushion-strap  about 
her  waist. 

He  noticed,  for  the  first  time,  that  they  were 
both  hatless.  And  as  he  began  to  feel  the  pene 
trating  chill  creep  into  his  own  bones,  he  swal 
lowed  a  mouthful  of  brandy  and  buttoned  his 
coat  close  up  to  his  throat.  But  they  were  still 
racing  on,  up  and  up  toward  the  Cordilleras. 
And  he  thanked  what  gods  he  thought  were 
watching  over  him  that  the  gasoline  had  held 
out,  and  that  the  car  had  kept  to  its  tracks. 

A  cluster  of  three  or  four  lights  showed 
ahead,  on  their  left,  and  brought  a  little  cry 
from  the  girl. 

"That's  Paraiso!"  she  called  out  to  him. 
"The  road  divides  here.  We  must  take  the 
track  to  the  right," 


THE  COUNTER-FORCES  317 

"That  means  a  switch!"  called  McKinnon, 
slowing  down. 

"We  have  to  circle  Paraiso  Hill,"  she  ex 
plained.  Then  she  stood  up,  with  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder,  and  peered  ahead  through  the 
darkness. 

"And  on  the  other  side  of  Paraiso  Hill  is 
Guariqui,"  she  said. 

It  startled  him  to  see  that  she  was  crying  a 
little,  for  no  accountable  reason,  as  she  sat  back 
in  her  seat  at  his  side. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  DISPUTED  TRAIL 

kept  slowing  the  car  down,  at  the 
repeated  warning  of  Alicia,  until  they  did  noth 
ing  more  than  creep  along  the  rails.  No  lights 
were  to  be  seen  now,  and  the  heavy  foliage  on 
either  side  of  the  track  left  them  in  what  was 
almost  an  unbroken  tunnel  of  darkness. 

So  McKinnon  leaned  out  over  the  side  of  the 
slowly  moving  car,  waiting  for  the  telltale  chug 
of  the  wheels  against  the  metal  of  the  switch- 
points.  They  groped  their  way  on  for  a  quar 
ter  of  a  mile  at  this  snail's  pace  before  this 
telltale  jolt  told  them  the  wheel-flanges  had 
struck  and  swerved  against  the  "points."  The 
switch  was  set  for  the  left-hand  track,  so  they 
had  to  reverse  and  back  away  again,  coming  to 
a  standstill  some  ten  or  twelve  paces  east  of 
the  switch-stand  target.  Then  McKinnon  went 
forward  to  reconnoitre,  leaving  the  girl,  with 
the  revolver,  to  guard  the  car. 

He  made  two  discoveries  as  he  crept  hur- 

318 


THE  DISPUTED  TRAIL  319 

riedly  about  the  track  in  the  darkness.  The 
first  was  that  the  switch  was  locked.  The  closed 
padlock  resisted  his  fiercest  tugs  and  wrenches. 
He  had  to  compel  himself  to  calmness  and  de 
mand  of  his  jaded  intelligence  some  more 
adequate  means  of  attack. 

He  returned  to  the  car,  after  a  moment  of 
thought,  and  groped  about  until  he  found  one 
of  the  army-rifles  lying  between  the  cartridge- 
boxes..  Then  he  felt  his  way  back  to  the  switch, 
and  worked  his  gun-end  carefully  in  through 
the  lock-chain.  It  did  not  take  him  long,  using 
his  carbine-barrel  as  a  crowbar,  to  pry  and 
twist  the  lever  free. 

His  second  discovery  was  a  more  alarming 
one.  Standing  on  the  Guariqui  track,  block 
ing  his  way,  was  a  flat-car.  This  car  was  piled 
high  with  roughly  hewn  sticks  of  logwood.  To 
push  any  such  dead  weight  as  this  ahead  of  them 
to  Guariqui  was  out  of  the  question.  He  knew 
it  would  have  to  be  hauled  back  and  side 
tracked  on  the  rails  to  the  left.  Whether  or 
not  it  was  beyond  the  strength  of  his  motor 
only  an  actual  test  could  tell. 

He  found  a  chain  binding  the  logwood-pile 
together,  and  after  a  few  minutes  of  hard  work 
this  chain  was  securely  attached  to  his  car-axle 
and  hooked  over  the  coupling-pin  of  the  flat- 
car. 


320  THE  DISPUTED  TRAIL 

But  try  as  he  might,  the  obstacle  was  not  to 
be  removed.  The  loaded  car  refused  to  stir. 
One  of  its  wheels,  pocketed  in  a  half-inch  de 
pression  caused  by  a  flattened  rail-end,  held  it 
anchored  to  the  spot.  His  motor,  sulking  and 
back-firing  under  the  unnatural  strain,  was  not 
strong  enough  for  the  task.  And  he  was  sorely 
afraid  of  injuring  his  engine  and  finding  him 
self  broken  down  and  helpless  on  the  very  out 
skirts  of  De  Brigard  's  lines.  He  saw  that  there 
was  nothing  to  do  but  unload  the  flat-car  where 
it  stood. 

Alicia  would  have  helped  him  at  that  slow 
and  dreary  labour,  but  he  pointed  out  to  her  the 
necessity  of  standing  on  guard  while  he  worked. 
The  rough-hewn  sticks  of  logwood  seemed 
heavy  beyond  belief.  Some  of  them,  which  he 
could  not  lift,  he  had  to  work  slowly  outward 
and  let  fall  from  the  side  of  the  car.  He  also 
had  to  make  sure  that  every  log  and  stick  fell 
clear  of  the  track. 

His  muscles  ached,  his  fingers  seemed  with 
out  joints,  his  strength  was  gone.  Twice  he  had 
to  resort  to  heavy  drafts  from  his  brandy-flask. 

But  he  worked  on,  doggedly,  sullenly,  argu 
ing  with  himself  that  he  ought  to  be  grateful 
that  he  was  gaining  his  end  without  being  dis 
covered,  picturing  what  such  labour  would  be 
under  the  fire  of  a  dozen  half-breed  sharp. 


THE  DISPUTED  TRAIL  321 

shooters  at  short  range.  Then  he  tried  to  con 
sole  himself  with  the  thought  that  his  gasoline 
had  held  out,  that  another  seven-mile  dash 
would  see  them  pounding  their  way  into  Guari- 
qui.  And  once  in  Guariqui  was  safety,  and  rest, 
and  sleep — above  all  things,  sleep.  There 
would  first  be  good  hot  coffee,  in  plenty,  and 
food.  And  then  he  would  be  given  a  bed  some 
where.  The  thought  of  that  bed  seemed  the 
most  consoling  of  all.  It  suggested  a  Nirodha 
of  utter  indifference  after  a  night  of  utter 
anguish ;  it  grew  to  symbolise  an  utter  Nirvana 
of  rest  for  his  over-wearied  body. 

But  a  new  fear  suddenly  stabbed  through  him 
as  he  stooped  and  laboured  so  doggedly  over 
his  lumbering  sticks  of  logwood.  Would  day 
light  come  before  they  were  on  their  way  again? 
Were  they  to  be  caught  and  trapped,  after  all, 
by  the  rising  sun? 

His  watch  had  run  down;  in  the  excitement 
of  the  last  twenty  hours  he  had  neglected  to 
wind  it.  All  sense  of  time  had  long  since  passed 
from  him. 

He  turned  and  looked  up  at  the  sky.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  the  great  velvet  dome 
studded  with  silver  star-points  was  less  opaque, 
was  more  luminous,  than  it  had  been.  The 
eastern  horizon  was  shut  off  from  him  by  a  wall 
of  heavy  foliage;  he  could  see  no  telltale  line 


322  THE  DISPUTED  TRAIL 

of  breaking  light.  But  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  darkness  about  him  was  waning,  merging 
into  a  gray  and  ghostlike  translucence.  Some 
where  out  of  the  distance,  as  he  looked,  came 
the  sound  of  a  rooster  crowing. 

There  was  something  incongruous  in  the 
trivial  everyday  ness  of  that  casual  cock-crow. 
Yet  this  ludicrously  commonplace  sound  sent  a 
tingle  of  terror  through  him.  It  caused  him 
to  turn  back  to  his  ragged  and  ponderous  slabs 
of  logwood,  lifting  and  tearing  at  them  until 
blood  dripped  from  his  bruised  finger-ends  and 
his  head  swam  as  with  a  vertigo. 

He  leaped  back,  suddenly,  with  a  galvanic 
start,  as  though  the  log  at  which  he  clutched 
had  been  a  power-circuit.  For  close  beside  him 
stood  the  figure  of  Alicia,  ghost-like  in  the  un 
certain  grayness  about  them. 

"The  light's  coming,"  she  warned  him.  "I 
must  help  you." 

"No — no,"  he  cried,  knowing  such  work  was 
beyond  her  strength,  "you  must  go  back  to  the 
car!  For  God's  sake,  guard  the  car!" 

"But  you  can't  do  it — you  can't  keep  this 
up!"  she  cried,  in  pitying  protest. 

' '  Go  back  to  the  car this  is  my 

work and  I'm  going  to  finish 

it!" 

The  maddening  thought  that  a  new  enemy, 


THE  DISPUTED  TRAIL  323 

tliis  relentless  enemy  of  light,  was  on  his  heels, 
turned  him  back  to  his  work,  frenziedly,  until 
his  heart  pounded  like  a  trip-hammer  under  his 
aching  breast-bone,  and  his  breath,  in  that  rare 
fied  atmosphere,  came  with  short,  painful  gasps. 

He  had  to  resort  to  his  brandy-flask  before 
he  could  reach  the  car  again.  There  he  rested 
for  a  precious  minute  or  two,  explaining  to 
Alicia  that  he  would  pry  against  the  empty  flat- 
car's  wheel  with  a  logwood  stick,  while  she 
hauled  and  tugged  at  its  lower  end  with  the  re 
versed  motor. 

It  was  perilous  work,  calling  for  the  utmost 
caution  lest  one  fault  of  judgment  undo  all  his 
labour.  It  was  a  moment  when  everything  hung 
in  the  balance,  when  one  grain  of  ill-luck  would 
send  the  beam  swinging  up  against  them.  But 
an  inarticulate  little  cry  burst  from  him  as  he 
saw  the  black  mass  slowly  yield,  and  then  move, 
inch  by  languid  inch.  He  heard  the  grind  of 
the  rusty  wheel-flanges  against  the  switch- 
points,  and  knew  that  he  had  won. 

Then  the  operation  was  repeated,  when  once 
the  switch  had  been  cleared  and  the  lever 
thrown  over,  and  again  the  stubborn  flat-car 
was  pried  and  pushed  into  motion.  When  it 
came  to  a  standstill,  it  was  left  resting  well 
off  to  the  left  of  the  switch,  with  the  road  to 
Guariqui  once  more  open. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE  LAST  DITCH 

's  ears  were  ringing,  and  his  head 
still  swam  a  little,  as  he  climbed  into  the  track- 
motor's  driving-seat.  He  noticed,  too,  as  they 
gathered  speed,  that  he  was  wet  with  sweat,  and 
that  the  cool  mountain  air  was  sending  a  chill 
into  his  very  bones. 

"Look!  It's  daylight  coming!"  cried  the 
girl  at  his  side.  He  peered  out  through  the 
phantasmal  grayness  that  lightened  about  them, 
and  a  new  anxiety  crept  and  corroded  through 
all  his  aching  body.  There  would  be  no  appre 
ciable  period  of  friendly  twilight.  The  tropics, 
he  knew,  would  explode  the  full  light  of  day  on 
them  like  a  rocket.  And  between  him  and  safety 
still  lay  seven  miles  of  track. 

"It  will  have  to  be  full  speed  now — to  the 
end,"  he  told  the  girl. 

She  called  back,  "Yes — I  know,"  as  the  lever 
went  to  the  last  notch  and  the  car  racked  and 
pounded  along  the  uneven  rails.  The  forest  fell 

324 


THE  LAST  DITCH  325 

away,  and  they  came  into  a  more  broken 
country,  winding  and  twisting  between  bald  and 
rocky  hills,  past  coffee-farms  from  which  early 
awakened  dogs  barked  out  at  them.  But  the 
ragged-hooded  car  raced  and  pounded  forward, 
taking  the  sharp  curves  with  a  scream  of  pro 
test,  striking  with  malignant  heels  at  every 
passing  switch-point.  Then  the  light  grew 
stronger;  they  could  see  a  more  orderly  and 
level  country  studded  with  rancho  and  hacienda, 
and  a  crooked,  sun-baked  road,  white  with  dust, 
and  broken  walls,  and  clumps  of  stunted  trees. 

Then  the  girl  gave  a  cry  and  caught  at  his 
arm. 

"Guariqui!"  she  said,  pointing  toward  the 
northwest.  He  had  no  time  to  look,  for  at  the 
same  moment  his  own  eyes  had  caught  sight  of 
something  which  filled  him  with  an  even  more 
compelling  emotion. 

Before  the  rocky  hill-crests  toward  which 
they  were  sweeping,  he  caught  sight  of  a  row 
of  smoke  columns  and  the  serried  white 
splashes  of  tent  walls  against  the  yellow-gray 
of  the  parched  fields.  He  leaped  to  his  feet  as 
he  saw  it.  He  surrendered  the  lever  recklessly, 
and  turned  and  struggled  with  one  of  the  car 
tridge-boxes  on  the  row  behind  them.  He  pulled 
and  tugged  and  worked  it  quickly  forward,  to 
heighten  the  barricade  on  the  right-hand  side 


326  THE  LAST  DITCH 

of  the  car,  for  he  knew  they  were  charging  down 
on  De  Brigard's  camp.  He  realised  that  their 
climacteric  moment  was  at  hand,  that  the  time 
for  their  last  dash  across  the  enemy's  lines  had 
come. 

Already  he  could  see  the  pacing  sentries  as 
they  met  and  countermarched  between  the  scat 
tered  splashes  of  white.  He  could  see  the  cor- 
raled  horses  and  mules  of  De  Brigard's  cav 
alry  feeding  together.  As  the  car  raced  on,  he 
could  even  make  out  groups  of  men  in  ragged 
uniform,  barefooted,  squatting  about  the  camp- 
fires. 

Some  of  them  he  could  see  stooping  quietly 
over  black  pots;  one  group  was  splashing  and 
washing  at  a  long  wooden  water-trough.  There 
seemed  something  tranquil  in  the  scene,  some 
thing  strangely  unlike  the  way  of  war  in  the 
slowly  rising  smoke  columns,  in  the  slowly  mov 
ing  barefooted  men,  in  the  ranclios  of  palm  and 
tree-boughs,  in  the  water-trough  and  the  tran 
quilly  feeding  horses  and  mules. 

Then  the  scene  changed,  with  the  quickness 
of  a  stage-picture.  The  cue  for  that  change 
came  with  a  challenge  from  a  sentry  and  then 
a  single  rifle-shot  from  a  second  sentry  on  guard 
further  along  the  track-edge.  The  camp 
changed  with  that  shot. 

It   seemed   to   McKinnon   like   the   sudden 


THE  LAST  DITCH  327 

change  that  swept  through  his  coherer-dust 
when  vitalised  with  its  magnetic  current.  The 
sentry,  in  the  meantime,  repeated  the  shot, 
three  times,  until  the  man  in  the  charging  car 
stood  up  and  returned  his  fire,  sharply,  driv 
ing  him  to  cover. 

But  the  alarm  had  been  given.  The  tree- 
clumps  and  the  broken  stone  walls  seemed  to 
swarm  with  men;  the  white  tents  became 
strangely  like  hornets*  nests  disgorging  excited 
occupants.  The  barefooted  idlers  grouped 
about  the  camp-fires  no  longer  watched  the  pots 
and  splashed  about  the  water-trough.  They  be 
came  armed  irregular  infantry;  they  were  sud 
denly  transformed  into  a  vindictive  and  reso 
lute-minded  company  whose  one  purpose  in  life 
was  to  pour  lead  into  a  huge,  rusted,  bullet-rid 
dled  track-motor  that  had  ridden  down  their 
sentries  and  broken  into  their  very  lines. 

For  one  incongruous  moment  McKinnon  had 
felt  vaguely  sorry  for  those  lean  and  hungry- 
looking  and  unkempt  idlers  in  dirty  denim  uni 
forms.  He  had  thought  of  them  as  homeless 
and  unhappy  men  who  were  being  made  the 
tools  of  forces  which  they  could  not  compre 
hend.  Now  they  seemed  to  him  dancing  and 
running  brown-faced  fiends,  doing  their  best  to 
put  a  bullet  through  the  head  of  a  stranger  who 
was  very  tired  and  hungry,  and  a  little  tipsy, 


328  THE  LAST  DITCH 

perhaps,  from  immoderate  drafts  of  brandy  on 
a  wofully  empty  stomach. 

He  saw  them,  as  in  a  dream,  but  he  scarcely 
gave  them  a  thought.  All  he  knew  was  that  the 
woman  huddled  down  at  his  side  was  still  safe, 
and  his  car  was  still  under  way.  Beyond  that, 
he  knew,  nothing  counted.  Death  had  snapped 
at  his  heels  too  often  and  too  closely  that  night ; 
he  was  supremely  contemptuous  of  their  fire 
cracker  powder  and  their  pot-metal  guns.  He 
wanted  to  get  to  Guariqui  and  have  something 
to  eat,  and  then  sleep  for  twenty  good  hours. 
And  the  racing  of  the  car  made  him  dizzy. 
And  every  bone  in  his  body  ached.  And  he 
wondered  how  long  he  would  have  to  keep 
shooting. 

Then  he  sat  back,  with  a  sigh,  and  rested  his 
arms.  He  noticed  that  his  gun-barrel  was  hot 
to  the  touch.  He  noticed,  too,  that  the  noise  of 
the  shooting  was  not  so  disquietingly  loud  in 
his  ears.  It  began  to  dawn  on  his  dazed  mind 
that  they  had  faced  the  worst  of  the  fight.  He 
began  to  understand  that  they  had  forced  their 
way  through  De  Brigard's  lines,  that  they  were 
swinging  up  to  the  outskirts  of  the  capital,  that 
they  were  to  reach  Guariqui,  after  all. 

Then  he  remembered  pounding  out  over  a  nar 
row  iron  bridge,  under  which  flashed  and  rip 
pled  a  little  stream  as  blue  as  a  robin's  egg. 


THE  LAST  DITCH  329 

It  made  him  think,  for  a  moment,  how  thirsty 
he  was,  how  much  he  would  give  for  a  hatful 
of  that  rippling  blue  water.  Then  all  thought 
of  the  stream  passed  from  his  indifferent  mind, 
for  before  him  he  could  see  walls,  white  walls 
and  blue  walls  and  pink  walls,  and  above  them 
huddled  red  roofs,  and  the  dark  green  of  tree- 
tops,  and  a  yellow  cathedral-tower,  and  still 
farther  away  a  coppered  roof-dome  glimmering 
like  a  ball  of  fire  in  the  slanting  sunlight.  Then 
he  heard  a  bugle  call,  and  call  again,  sweet  as 
silver,  like  a  voice  out  of  a  dream. 

That  mellow  and  trailing  note  was  punc 
tuated  by  the  sudden  blow-like  sounds  of  rifle 
shots,  from  somewhere  amid  the  soft  white  and 
blue  and  pink  of  the  very  walls  ahead  of  him. 
He  saw  the  track-ballast  about  him  leap  and 
erupt  into  ominous  little  clouds  of  flying  dust. 
Ulloa's  outposts  were  shooting  at  him,  from 
Guariqui.  They  were  under  fire,  from  their  own 
people. 

" Quick!'*  he  called  to  the  girl.  "Show  a 
flag!" 

"How?"  she  asked,  not  understanding. 

"Tie  it  to  a  carbine-end!    Quick!" 

"Tie  what?"  she  called  in  his  ear. 

"A  flag — a  white  flag — anything  white!" 

He  knew,  the  next  moment,  that  she  was  tear 
ing  a  linen  underskirt  from  her  own  limbs.  He 


330  THE  LAST  DITCH 

could  see  her  quick  fingers  rip  it  into  an  oblong 
of  fluttering  white.  He  stooped  for  the  carbine 
that  lay  in  the  car-bottom,  and  as  he  stooped 
he  heard  the  girl  call  to  him. 

It  was  a  call  of  something  more  than  alann. 
It  was  terror,  unthinking  and  abject  terror. 

He  was  back  at  her  side  in  a  second :  his  first 
sickening  thought  was  that  a  bullet  had  reached 
her. 

But  he  saw  only  her  outstretched  hand, 
pointing  foolishly  and  vaguely  to  something  in 
front  of  her.  He  saw  her  wide  and  staring  eyes, 
as  she  crouched  down  and  back,  lower  and  lower 
in  the  driving-seat,  as  though  preparing  her 
self  for  some  vast  and  overwhelming  blow. 

He  whipped  about  and  followed  the  line  of 
that  terrified  stare.  Then  he  understood  what 
it  meant.  He  saw  where  the  two  lines  of  the 
narrow-gauge  track  came  to  an  end;  he  saw 
where  some  half-dozen  lengths  of  rails  had  been 
torn  away,  and  tossed  to  one  side.  He  saw  the 
track,  on  which  they  rode,  the  track  which  he 
had  come  to  regard  as  something  fixed  and 
stable,  as  something  permanent  as  the  earth 
itself,  end  in  nothing. 

His  foot  went  down  on  the  emergency  brake, 
viciously,  at  the  same  moment  that  his  outflung 
arm  threw  the  speed  lever  off.  He  knew,  even 
then,  that  it  was  all  useless,  that  it  was  all  too 


THE  LAST  DITCH  331 

late.  But  lie  acted  subconsciously,  automat 
ically.  He  knew  what  was  coming,  even  before 
the  wheel-flanges  dropped  from  the  rail-end 
and  lunged  and  shook  and  pounded  along  the 
sleepers.  He  braced  himself  and  held  tight,  as 
the  girl  was  doing — praying,  all  the  while,  that 
the  rushing  thing  of  steel  would  not  overturn. 

But  a  forward  wheel  gave  way,  under  the 
strain,  and  the  car-floor  suddenly  dipped  under 
them,  dipped  and  bowed  until  the  axle  locked 
against  a  cross-tie  with  a  jolt  that  sent  the  great 
hulk  careening  sideways,  where  it  raised  and 
rolled  over  in  the  yellow  sand,  ponderously,  in 
dignantly,  like  an  ill-treated  animal. 

McKinnon  caught  the  girl  as  she  fell  on  him, 
with  a  sharp  out-swinging  motion.  But  he 
swung  and  tumbled  her  free  of  the  car,  away 
from  the  menace  of  the  toppling  cartridge- 
boxes.  Then  he  rolled  over  on  his  face,  and 
crawled  to  the  girl's  side,  on  all  fours,  with  the 
grit  of  yellow  sand  between  his  teeth  and  the 
choking  smart  of  the  dust-cloud  still  in  his  gasp 
ing  lungs. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE  LAST  HOPE 

's  fall  seemed  to  shock  him  into 
new  life.  The  very  abruptness  of  his  disaster 
brought  with  it  a  renewed  appreciation  of 
danger.  His  mind  became  alert  again,  with  the 
peevish  alertness  of  febrility,  as  though,  like 
the  long-taxed  body,  it  were  capable  of  coming 
into  a  sort  of  second-wind. 

He  realised  what  had  happened,  for  he  was 
thinking  clearly  and  quickly  now.  He  could  see 
the  whole  thing,  and  see  it  only  too  well.  De 
Brigard's  men  had  had  the  forethought  to  break 
the  one  line  of  communication  between  Guariqui 
and  the  coast.  This  end  had  been  achieved 
easily  enough,  by  the  mere  uprooting  of  a  few 
lengths  of  track.  He  had  ridden  into  that  open 
trap,  without  thought.  He  had  demanded  too 
much  of  Destiny.  Luck  had  at  last  gone  against 
him,  as  it  must  in  the  end  go  against  every  man 
who  insists  on  taking  his  chances. 

They  were  alone  there,  he  and  the  girl  he 

839 


THE  LAST  HOPE  333 

was  trying  to  save,  under  the  hot  morning  sun 
of  an  open  and  unprotected  country.  They 
were  stranded  on  a  slope  of  yellow  ballast-sand, 
face  to  face  with  a  guerilla  army  that  would  re 
fuse  them  quarter,  under  the  walls  of  a  be 
leaguered  city  that  would  decline  to  admit  them. 
Yes,  he  had  asked  too  much  of  Fate.  There 
was  nothing  left  to  him,  now,  but  to  fight  it  out, 
fight  it  out  to  a  finish. 

The  next  clearly  defined  thought  that  came  to 
him  was  that  he  was  burning  with  thirst.  Be 
fore  everything  else,  he  felt,  he  must  have  water. 
And  there  remained  only  one  hope  of  water. 
That  was  the  little  stream  two  hundred  yards 
behind  them,  the  flashing  little  ribbon  of  blue 
over  which  De  Brigard's  men  would  be  swarm 
ing  at  any  moment. 

There  was  no  time  to  be  lost.  His  first  task 
was  to  make  his  way  to  that  stream  and  back — 
to  fight  his  way  there  and  back,  if  need  be.  He 
could  not  hold  out,  he  knew,  without  water. 

He  dodged  and  peered  and  groped  about  the 
overturned  car,  in  feverish  search  for  anything 
that  would  hold  water.  That  hurried  search 
seemed  a  hopeless  one,  until  his  eyes  fell  on  a 
battered  gasoline-can  of  galvanised  tin,  stowed 
away  under  the  seat-frame.  He  got  the  screw- 
top  off  its  cover,  in  some  way,  and  let  its  con 
tents  bubble  out  on  the  yellow  sand  as  he  swung 


334  THE  LAST  HOPE 

about  the  car  again.  The  moment  he  did  so 
the  sharp,  complaining  pinnnnng  of  a  bullet 
sounded  close  over  his  head.  It  had  come  from 
the  west,  from  Guariqui.  Before  he  could  dodge 
in  under  the  far  side  of  the  car-body  it  was  re 
peated,  again,  and  still  again.  One  of  Duran's 
own  men,  he  knew,  was  picking  at  him  from  a 
housetop. 

He  found  the  girl,  as  he  dodged  back  into 
shelter,  sitting  against  the  floor  of  the  over 
turned  car.  Her  face  was  colourless,  and  her 
eyes  unnaturally  large. 

"Is  this  the  end?'*  she  asked,  as  he  caught 
up  one  of  the  carbines  half-smothered  in  sand 
at  her  feet. 

"The  end?"  he  cried.  "No,  it's  not  the 
end!" 

"What  can  I  do?"  she  asked. 

"We've  got  to  have  water — and  I'm  going  to 
get  it !  Keep  close  to  that  car  until  I  get  back !" 

"But  they'll  cut  you  off;  they'll " 

He  had  not  waited  to  hear  her.  He  was  run 
ning  out  across  the  open  and  undulating  ground, 
bending  low  as  he  ran.  She  could  easily  fol 
low  his  moving  black  shadow,  in  the  glare  of 
the  open  sunlight.  She  heard  a  scattering  of 
rifle-shots  further  eastward  as  he  crossed  a 
stretch  of  higher  ground.  Then  she  saw  him 
drop  to  his  knee.  Her  first  thought  was  that 


THE  LAST  HOPE  335 

lie  was  wounded.  But  the  next  moment  she  be 
held  him  bring  his  rifle  into  action,  and  then  run 
forward,  and  repeat  the  movement,  and  again 
run  forward.  Then  he  ducked  lower,  and  rose 
again,  and  suddenly  dropped  down  into  the  bed 
of  the  creek,  completely  out  of  sight. 

He  remained  there  for  what  seemed  an  inter 
minable  length  of  time  to  her.  The  vicious 
snapping  and  popping  of  the  distant  guns  crept 
ominously  closer,  second  by  second.  They 
would  be  on  him,  she  felt,  before  he  could  es 
cape.  They  would  cut  him  off  before  he  could 
even  climb  from  the  creek-bed. 

Then,  in  the  clear  light,  she  saw  his  head 
emerge.  She  caught  sight  of  him  worming  cau 
tiously  back,  dodging  and  rounding  into  each 
land-depression.  The  gun-shots  began  again, 
until  they  became  a  rhythm  of  hollow  sound, 
like  quick  and  impatient  hammer-pounds  on  a 
plank.  She  saw  that  he  was  wet  to  the  knees, 
and  breathing  hard,  as  he  stumbled  back  to  the 
car. 

Then,  as  she  saw  the  wet  and  dripping  can, 
all  her  being  was  centred  on  the  thought  of  her 
own  thirst,  of  how  her  dry  throat  ached  and 
throbbed  for  water.  She  scarcely  noticed  that 
the  firing  had  ceased,  that  the  line  of  skulking 
and  scattered  figures  had  fallen  mysteriously 
away.  She  only  knew  that  McKinnon  had 


336  THE  LAST  HOPE 

dropped  that  precious  water-can  in  front  of  her. 

The  next  moment  he  was  hauling  and  tearing 
at  the  overturned  cartridge-boxes.  At  first,  as 
she  looked  up  and  saw  his  hollow  and  exultant 
eyes,  she  thought  he  had  lost  his  reason,  that 
pain  and  fatigue  and  hunger  had  left  him  hope 
lessly  mad.  But  as  she  watched  his  struggles 
she  knew  there  was  a  method  in  them. 

For  he  was  dragging  and  hauling  the  heavy 
boxes  into  a  line  directly  before  the  overturned 
car.  Then,  with  a  railway-spike  and  a  musket- 
end,  he  pried  the  tops  from  those  boxes  which 
came  most  readily  apart,  and  poured  the  dross 
and  cartridges  out,  in  one  heap.  Then  he  flung 
the  end  of  a  broken  car-step  to  the  girl. 

" Quick!"  he  commanded,  kicking  a  box 
towards  her.  "Fill  these  with  sand!" 

She  did  as  he  ordered,  scooping  up  the  yel 
low  sand  with  the  fragment  of  flat  iron,  while 
he  dragged  more  cartridge-boxes  from  the  car- 
wreck  and  built  up  a  little  three-sided  wall 
about  the  spot  where  she  dug.  His  movements, 
at  times,  took  him  beyond  the  bulwark  of  the 
overturned  car,  and  each  time  he  thus  exposed 
himself  the  man  from  the  Guariqui  housetop 
sniped  at  him,  calmly  and  viciously. 

"This  is  our  only  chance,"  he  hurriedly  ex 
plained,  as  he  ducked  irritably  back  out  of  fire 
and  tugged  and  hauled  and  lifted  at  his  boxes. 


THE  LAST  HOPE  337 

"Our  chance  for  what?"  she  asked,  as  she 
worked. 

"For  holding  out — for  keeping  them  back — 
for  saving  this  ammunition  for  Guariqui!" 

He  was  now  taking  the  boxes  as  she  filled 
them,  and  piling  them  one  above  the  other  on 
the  outside  of  his  roughly  built  wall,  as  an 
armour-belt  protection  for  his  serried  cartridge- 
cases.  He  was  afraid  of  what  a  bullet  at  close 
range  might  do  to  those  cartridges.  And  all 
the  while,  slowly  and  methodically,  the  Guariqui 
sharpshooter  was  picking  at  him,  as  he  showed 
himself  outside  the  shadow  of  the  car-wreck. 

"We  can  hold  them  off,  I  tell  you!"  McKin- 
non  was  exulting,  as  he  left  a  narrow  embrasure 
in  his  three-foot  battlement,  by  pushing  two  of 
the  boxes  a  few  inches  apart.  "We've  got  a 
fort  here !  We're  as  safe  as  Guariqui  is !  They 
can't  get  in  behind  us,  because  Ulloa's  men  are 
waiting  there,  and  they  know  it!  They've  got 
to  come  at  us  from  the  front!  And  we're  safe 
behind  this — it's  as  safe  as  a  stone  wall!  And 
we've  got  ammunition — a  ton  of  it,  if  we  need 
it!" 

He  was  hauling  at  more  of  the  boxes,  build 
ing  his  side-walls  now. 

One  of  the  Guariqui  sharpshooter's  bullets 
whined  in  over  his  head,  within  a  foot  of  where 


338  THE  LAST  HOPE 

he  worked.  He  swung  about  and  shook  his  fist 
at  his  unseen  enemy,  irritably,  impotently. 

"You  fool!"  he  cried.  "You  fool! — wasting 
powder  on  the  people  who 're  tryin'  to  save 
you ! ' ' 

"We  can't  save  them!"  said  the  woman,  gray 
with  dust,  weak  with  hunger,  sick  with  fear. 
But  she  worked  on,  mechanically,  doggedly. 

"We've  got  to!"  exulted  McKinnon,  as  he 
took  the  last  box  of  sand  from  her.  "We've 
got  to  hold  out  until  the  Princeton  lands  her 
men  and  gets  them  up  into  the  hills  here!  It's 
simply  a  matter  of  time !  We  can  hold  out  here 
as  well  as  in  Guariqui !  We're  safe  here !  And 
we've  got  water!" 

"But  no  food!"  she  said. 

"Wait!"  he  cried  again.  "The  chocolate! 
And  the  milk-tablets !  It 's  enough !  And  here 's 
brandy,  see — half  a  cupful  of  brandy  left!" 

"But  how  long  will  that  last?" 

"It  will  last  as  long  as  we  need  it — until 
nightfall,  anyway!"  he  declared,  as  he  crawled 
back  to  the  car  and  dragged  the  remaining  rifle 
out  from  under  the  fallen  boxes. 

"But  if  the  Princeton's  men  are  not  here  by 
night?"  she  asked. 

He  seemed  to  resent  her  note  of  hopelessness. 

1 ' They  will  be  here  by  night !  They've  got  to 
be  here!  They  should  be  at  Puerto  Locombia 


THE  LAST  HOPE  339 

by  five  this  afternoon.  They'll  commandeer  a 
Fruit  Concern  locomotive  from  the  roundhouse 
there,  and  be  up  here  by  sunset — before  sun 
set!" 

She  forced  herself  to  believe  him.  She  strug 
gled  to  catch  at  some  shadow  of  his  hopeful 
ness. 

"Then  what  more  must  I  do,  to  help!"  she 
asked,  very  quietly.  He  was  peering  out  over 
the  rolling  and  sun-steeped  plain. 

"Eat — we  must  eat  before  those  devils  start 
back  at  us!"  he  said,  as  he  caught  up  the  can 
of  gasoline-tainted  water  and  gulped  at  it,  sav 
agely,  for  the  sun  by  this  time  was  cruelly  hot 
overhead.  Then  he  dragged  out  his  brandy- 
flask,  diluted  its  contents,  and  made  the  girl 
drink  from  it. 

"If  that  fool  back  there 'd  only  stop  wasting 
powder!"  he  cried,  as  a  bullet  splattered 
against  a  car-wheel  behind  them.  "They  won't 
understand  who  we  are,  back  there,  until  they 
see  De  Brigard's  men  coming  in  closer  and 
closer,  or  trying  to  rush  us.  They  won't  know 
we're  friends  until  they  see  us  holding  that 
guerilla  mob  off!" 

"It  can't  be  long  now,"  said  the  girl,  blink 
ing  out  across  the  sun-steeped  plain,  where,  in 
the  distance,  restless  brown  figures  could  be 


340  THE  LAST  HOPE 

seen  once  more  moving  and  dispersing  and  con 
cealing  themselves  along  the  land-dips. 

"Then  we  must  eat,  before  they  come,"  he 
answered,  putting  the  broken  and  crumpled 
pieces  of  army-chocolate  out  between  them. 
The  milk-tablets  he  decided  to  save  for  a  second 
meal.  Then  he  loaded  the  rifles,  and  laid  them 
out  ready,  and  placed  the  three  revolvers  on  a 
box-top,  with  his  pocketful  of  cartridges  close 
beside  them. 

And  they  sat  there  on  the  yellow  sand  of  their 
little  rifle-pit,  breakfasting  on  brandy-and- 
water  and  unsweetened  chocolate,  while  they 
waited  for  the  enemy  to  come  up. 


CHAPTER  XXXH 

THE  LAST   STAND 

ALICIA  was  busy  tying  a  strip  of  linen  skirt 
into  a  cap  for  McKinnon's  head,  to  protect  him 
from  the  sun,  when  the  firing  began  again. 

It  was  not  general,  at  first.  It  was  more  the 
spasmodic  and  desultory  pizzicato  of  sound 
which  foretells  the  readiness  of  the  waiting 
orchestra.  It  began  quietly,  as  a  storm  begins, 
yet  there  seemed  little  that  was  ominous  about 
it.  The  listening  girl  wondered,  as  De  Bri- 
gard's  outposts  worked  their  way  closer  and 
closer  in  towards  the  creek-bed,  if  she  had  not 
become  half -inured  to  the  tumult  of  musketry. 

McKinnon,  watching  at  the  embrasure,  con 
ceded  them  any  territory  that  lay  beyond  the 
creek-brink.  It  was  wasting  time  and  powder, 
he  knew,  to  attempt  to  hold  them  back  from  that 
little  stream-bottom.  He  only  toK>  poignantly 
realised  the  limitations  of  his  short-barrelled 
rilles  of  "Belgian  Damascus."  He  was  not  al 
together  unfamiliar  with  that  particular  make 

841 


342  THE  LAST  STAND 

of  arm.  They  were  weapons  which  only  too 
often  left  the  detonation  of  thirty  grains  of 
powder  a  peril  and  converted  bullet-trajectories 
into  a  thing  of  ever-changing  wonder.  But  he 
had  shown  Alicia  how  to  reload  each  of  these 
rifles.  He  had  also  taught  her  the  trick  of  dis 
lodging  a  shell  when  it  jammed — for  many  of 
the  cartridges,  after  their  sea-trip,  were  still 
damp  and  swollen. 

But  beyond  the  wavering  line  of  that  creek- 
bank,  he  determined,  no  man  should  advance 
unchallenged.  Above  all  things,  he  knew,  he 
had  to  keep  his  front  clear. 

"It's  ten  to  one  they  won't  come  at  us  in 
force,"  he  explained  to  the  girl  crouched  at  his 
knees  in  the  rule-pit.  ; ' They  won't  throw  them 
selves  on  us  until  they  know  what  we  carry. 
But  we've  got  to  stop  that  first  rush !" 

It  was  a  minute  or  two  before  she  spoke,  for 
a  flurry  of  bullets  came  whistling  and  whimper 
ing  and  quavering  close  in  over  their  heads. 
One  or  two,  McKinnon  noticed,  chugged  omin 
ously  against  the  face  of  his  sand-boxes.  But 
most  of  them  went  high,  foolishly  high. 

"Couldn't  I  get  to.  Guariqui?"  the  girl  was 
asking.  l i  Couldn't  I — with  a  white  flag  of  some 
sort,  to  warn  them?" 

"These  devils  'd  never  let  you  get  twenty 
feet  away.  And  it. would  do  no  good!" 


THE  LAST  STAND  343 

"Why?"  she  asked. 

"They're  helpless  in  there  ....  they've 
no  ammunition!" 

She  compelled  herself  to  calmness  again. 

"But  surely  they'll  know  ....  surely 
.  .  .  .  in  time,"  she  murmured. 

"Yes,  they'll  know!"  he  answered,  absently, 
for  his  squinting  eyes  were  on  the  undulating 
sweep  of  open  ground  ahead  of  him.  He  could 
see  little  barefooted  men  in  ragged  denim  uni 
forms,  creeping  and  running  from  hollow  to 
hollow,  spreading  out  in  an  irregular  line,  like 
the  fan-edge  of  a  breaking  side-swell. 

"They're  coming  ....  keep  low!"  he 
said.  And  as  he  spoke  he  sighted  and  fired. 

The  response  to  that  first  fire  of  his  was 
prompt,  almost  instantaneous.  It  brought  a 
steady  crescendo  clatter  of  sound  and  a  patter 
and  throb  of  bullets  against  the  pit-front. 

McKinnon  swung  the  emptied  rifle  back  into 
the  hands  of  the  waiting  girl  and  caught  up  its 
mate,  with  one  movement  of  his  body. 

He  was  firing  calmly  and  deliberately  now, 
watching  for  each  upthrust  shoulder  and  ad 
vancing  head  as  it  rose  above  the  dip  of  the 
creek-bottom. 

Then  the  heads  began  to  show  thicker  and 
faster,  and  it  left  him  no  time  for  deliberation. 
He  pumped  the  lever  and  fired  until  his  arms 


344  THE  LAST  STAND 

ached.  He  chose  his  man  and  emptied  his  shell 
until  the  powder-smoke  hung  thick  and  acrid 
about  the  little  rifle-pit,  until  his  face  was 
streaked  and  smutted  with  it,  as  though  it  had 
been  lampblacked.  He  fired  until  his  eyes 
smarted  with  the  drifting  fumes  and  his  lungs 
ached  with  their  stench.  He  fired  until  a  sicken 
ing  smell  of  scorching  oil  rose  from  the  metal 
of  his  rifles  and  the  empty  shells  littered  the  pit- 
bottom. 

But  in  the  end  he  held  the  dodging  and  shift 
ing  little  denim-clad  figures  in  check,  puzzled 
by  the  fury  of  his  fire.  He  swept  his  appointed 
ground  clear.  He  allowed  no  worming  and 
skulking  rifleman  to  advance  even  twenty  paces 
beyond  the  creek-bank. 

They  drew  back  under  cover,  bewildered, 
wondering  how  many  men  that  overturned  car 
could  have  held.  The  staccato  of  sound  dwin 
dled  down  to  a  sulky  and  intermittent  dribble 
of  reports.  McKinnon  saw  it,  with  a  shout  of 
gratitude,  for  he  knew  that  he  had  reached  his 
utmost  limit. 

He  staggered  back  to  gulp  down  great  swal 
lows  of  tepid  water  from  the  gasoline-can  which 
the  girl  was  holding  up  for  him.  Then  he 
helped  her  reload,  and  waited  for  the  smoke 
to  lift. 

"Have  they  gone?"  she  asked. 


THE  LAST  STAND  345 

"No,"  he  told  her,  as  he  swung  up  to  his 
embrasure  again.  "But  they've  found  out  just 
what  they've  got  to  face!" 

"What  will  they  do?" 

"It  looks  as  though  they're  going  to  try  dif 
ferent  tactics  now.  They'll  take  their  time, 
after  this,  and  try  to  grill  us  out.  Don't  give 
way,  please!  Don't  imagine " 

But  he  did  not  stop  to  finish,  for  he  braced 
his  smoke-blackened  shoulders  and  fired,  and 
peered  forward,  and  fired  again,  and  still  again. 

"They  think  they  can  dishearten  us,  now, 
with  sniping,"  he  told  her.  "It'll  be  a  waiting 
game,  I'm  afraid  ....  but  you  mustn't 
give  way!" 

The  pallor  of  her  face  had  disturbed  and  wor 
ried  him.  But  what  was  disturbing  him  more 
was  the  thought  that  they  might  at  any  time 
bring  up  a  field-gun,  and  end  his  last  and  only 
hope. 

It  was  this  fear  that  clung  to  him,  and  took 
the  marrow  out  of  his  courage,  and  made  the 
long,  hot  hours  of  mid-day  seem  purgatorial  in 
their  endlessness.  But  still  he  watched  and 
sighted  and  fired,  and  reloaded,  and  fired  again, 
grimly,  doggedly,  pertinaciously,  giving  them  a 
counter-challenge  for  every  challenge  they  sent 
in  to  him. 

Then  mid-day  lengthened  into  afternoon,  and 


346  THE  LAST  STAND 

a  disturbing  weakness  descended  upon  him.  So 
he  leaned  against  his  embrasure  and  chewed 
milk-tablets,  and  fired  when  he  saw  a  moving 
shadow  to  target  into,  or  a  threatening  gun- 
arm  to  aim  at,  and  made  the  white-faced  girl 
eat  her  portion  of  the  milk-tablets  and  drink 
the  last  of  the  brandy-and-water. 

And  as  he  watched  the  afternoon  grew  older, 
and  the  sun  swung  lower  over  Guariqui.  But 
still  he  fired  and  reloaded  and  wondered  if  the 
Princeton  had  steamed  into  Puerto  Locombia, 
and  silently  and  devoutly  prayed  for  help. 

Then  all  thought  of  prayer  went  from  his 
mind,  for  his  squinting  eyes  had  fallen  on  what 
looked  like  a  salt-barrel  as  it  appeared  over 
the  brink  of  the  creek-bank,  a  ludicrous  and  un 
looked-for  thing  of  staves  and  hoops. 

McKinnon  watched  this  barrel,  in  wonder,  for 
it  seemed  to  shift  about  by  itself.  Then  it  be 
gan  to  roll  slowly  forward.  It  advanced 
towards  the  rifle-pit,  inch  by  inch,  propelled  by 
no  visible  human  hand.  It  moved  ponderously 
onward,  foot  by  foot,  as  though  it  had  been  en 
dowed  with  some  miraculous  power  of  locomo 
tion. 

Then  it  came  to  a  stop,  on  a  barren  ''hog 
back,"  high  above  the  ground  that  surrounded 
it.  But  even  before  the  betraying  black  finger  of 
a  rule-end  appeared  cautiously  and  slowly  above 


THE  LAST  STAND  347 

one  corner  of  it,  McKinnon  knew  it  was  a  blind, 
a  moving  shelter.  He  knew  it  was  a  barrel  filled 
with  sand,  a  roughly  improvised  ambuscade 
being  pushed  forward  by  some  intrepid  sharp 
shooter  from  De  Brigard's  camp. 

The  man  in  the  rifle-pit  watched  that  barrel, 
uneasily,  frowningly,  firing  maliciously  at  it, 
from  tune  to  time,  as  it  advanced  and  stopped 
and  delivered  its  whistling  challenge  of  lead 
and  still  again  crawled  onward.  It  seemed  a 
thing  to  fear  and  hate,  like  some  venomous  and 
loathsome  dinosaurian  reptile  armoured  against 
attack.  Then  the  man  watching  it  schooled  him 
self  to  calmness,  and  fired  more  deliberately, 
studying  his  sight  and  range  and  trajectory, 
feeling  his  way  about  that  incongruous  and  rep- 
tilious  enemy  with  a  hissing  antenna  of  lead. 

When  the  rifle-end  showed  again  McKinnon 
fired,  as  calmly  and  judiciously  as  before,  but 
this  time  three  inches  to  the  right  of  the  rifle- 
end  and  the  fraction  of  an  inch  lower. 

He  had  the  satisfaction  of  beholding  a  pair 
of  hands  thrown  up  in  the  air,  wide  apart,  and 
of  knowing  that  the  rifle  had  fallen  to  the 
ground.  Beyond  that  there  was  no  sign.  But 
the  sand-barrel  did  not  move  again. 

Then,  as  he  watched  with  heavy  eyes,  he 
caught  sight  of  a  figure  on  horseback,  circling 
out  from  what  must  have  been  the  most  south- 


348  THE  LAST  STAND 

erly  edge  of  De  Brigard's  camp  to  the  higher 
stretch  of  the  creek-back.  He  saw  the  horse 
man  stop,  gesticulate,  and  apparently  give 
orders.  Then  he  swung  about  again,  and  cir 
cled  out  of  sight.  But  five  minutes  after  he  had 
done  so  a  second  line  of  infantry  detoured  from 
the  coppice-screened  fringes  of  the  camp  and 
crept  in  towards  the  men  who  had  earlier  in  the 
day  taken  their  position  along  the  creek-bed. 
Each  man,  McKinnon  saw,  carried  a  rifle.  And 
again  he  wondered  if  the  Princeton  had  reached 
Puerto  Locombia,  and  again  he  secretly  and 
desperately  prayed  that  help  would  still  come 
to  them.  Then  he  called  to  the  girl  at  his  side. 

11  They  're  going  to  try  to  rush  us!"  he  ex 
plained  to  her,  very  quietly.  But  he  found  it 
hard  to  say  to  her  just  what  he  wanted  to  say. 

"Can  they?"  she  asked;  her  faith  in  him, 
now,  was  blind  and  unreasoning. 

"Well,  they'll  pay  for  it!"  was  all  he  had  the 
heart  to  say,  as  he  swung  his  reloaded  rifle  up 
to  the  dusty  wall-top. 

He  did  not  speak  again,  for  there  was  no  time 
for  it.  He  was  firing  now,  quickly  and  yet  dis 
passionately.  He  caught  up  one  gun  after  the 
other  and  poured  his  fire  into  the  shifting  and 
advancing  shadows  cut  out  with  cameo-like 
clearness  in  the  full  afternoon  sunlight.  He 
kept  firing,  feverishly,  and  yet  almost  uncon- 


THE  LAST  STAND  349 

cernedly,  until  the  magazines  were  emptied  and 
the  barrels  were  too  hot  to  hold.  But  he  could 
no  longer  keep  his  ground  clear.  They  were  at 
last  clearing  the  creek-bank,  clearing  it  in 
swarms.  They  were  finally  overwhelming  him, 
in  sheer  force  of  numbers. 

Powder-smoke  enveloped  him.  Dust  and 
splinters  flew  about  him.  Runnels  of  sweat  ran 
down  his  lean  and  grimy  face.  But  still  he  kept 
firing,  faster  and  faster,  pouring  his  lead  into 
the  advancing  line  in  a  frenzy  of  hopelessness. 

Then  one  of  the  guns  jammed,  irretrievably. 
He  caught  up  the  other,  and  emptied  it,  until 
the  overheated  steel  scorched  his  shaking  hand. 
But  still  the  ragged  and  shouting  line  came  on, 
unchecked.  He  had  nothing  but  the  revolvers  to 
fall  back  on.  So  he  snatched  them  and  stood 
up  to  it,  breast-high  above  the  sand-box  rampart 
in  front  of  him. 

"Come  on,  you  cowards!"  he  exulted,  drunk- 
enly,  reelingly,  as  he  faced  and  watched  the 
spitting  and  snapping  and  ever-advancing  line, 
for  he  knew  it  was  the  end.  Then  the  girl 
dragged  him  down,  while  she  reloaded,  and 
caught  up  the  third  revolver  and  stood  at  his 
side,  with  her  breast  against  a  smoke-blackened 
cartridge-box. 

"It's  the  end!"  he  said. 


350  THE  LAST  STAND 

"I  know!"  she  answered,  moving  closer,  so 
that  her  body  touched  his. 

But  the  line  she  looked  out  on  was  not  the 
same  line  that  McKinnon  had  last  seen.  It  had 
shifted  and  wheeled,  in  an  inexplicable  side- 
movement.  It  had  crumpled  and  twisted  up  on 
itself,  like  leaves  caught  and  tossed  in  a  wind- 
eddy. 

Then  a  cry  burst  from  her  throat,  a  cry  of 
sheer  joy,  and  she  caught  at  McKinnon 's  arm. 

"Look!"  she  said,  with  a  sob. 

For  swinging  about  the  track-curve  were  two 
flat-cars.  Mounted  on  these  cars  she  could  see 
glimmering  and  burnished  machine-guns.  And 
behind  these  guns  stood  cheering  and  shouting 
bluejackets,  stabbing  the  air  with  adder-like 
tongues  of  flame  as  the  spinning  chambers  were 
discharged  and  the  puffing  locomotive  pushed 
them  slowly  upward  along  the  narrow  track. 

They  seemed  little  more  than  boys,  those 
quick-moving  and  bright-eyed  jackies.  They 
were  shouting  with  the  foolish  joy  and  pride  of 
youth  at  the  thought  of  its  first  baptism  of  fire. 
They  seemed  like  an  excursion  of  madmen  to 
McKinnon.  He  wondered  what  they  meant, 
where  they  came  from.  But  he  could  not  give 
them  much  thought.  He  had  other  things  to 
think  of — for  a  wounded  Locombian,  a  little 
brown-faced  demon  with  a  long-barrelled  maga- 


THE  LAST  STAND  351 

zinc-rifle,  was  crawling  towards  him  on  a 
broken  thigh,  taking  pot-shots  as  he  came.  And 
McKinnon  knew  he  had  to  hold  that  man  off, 
and  it  worried  him  to  think  that  he  had  only  a 
revolver  to  do  it  with.  But  he  fired  and  re 
loaded  and  fired,  leaning  out  over  his  wall-top 
and  hurling  half-delirious  imprecations  into  the 
smoke-hung  air.  He  fought  on,  to  the  last,  like 
a  man  in  a  dream.  All  the  world,  to  him,  had 
become  a  chaotic  pit  of  contending  spirits  who 
clamoured  for  his  blood. 

Then  he  was  stirred  and  disturbed  by  the  sud 
den  scream  of  the  girl  at  his  side.  Her  voice 
seemed  to  come  from  a  great  distance ;  it  smote 
on  his  ear  thinly,  as  though  heard  through  a 
wall. 

"You're  wounded!"  she  cried,  foolishly, 
hysterically.  He  denied  it,  indifferently,  and 
wondered  why  he  was  no  longer  standing  be 
side  his  cartridge-boxes.  He  saw  her  white  and 
smoke-streaked  face  bent  over  his  arm  and 
heard  her  repeated  cry  of  alarm  as  she  tore 
away  a  part  of  his  ragged  shirt-sleeve.  He 
could  see  her  fingers,  when  she  lifted  them ;  they 
were  wet,  and  dark-red  in  colour.  Then  he 
knew  that  she  was  tearing  some  part  of  her 
dress,  that  she  was  binding  and  twisting  a  strip 
of  linen  about  his  arm,  somewhere  below  the 
left  shoulder. 


352  THE  LAST  STAND 

She  twisted  and  tightened  it  cruelly;  but  he 
was  too  tired  to  argue  with  her  about  it.  He 
felt  it  would  be  best  to  humour  her ;  she  had  had 
to  endure  so  much  for  him.  And  it  was  rather 
pleasant,  he  told  himself,  having  her  fussing 
about  him  that  way.  But  he  wished  she 
wouldn't  cry  and  shake,  and  that  he  could  ex 
plain  to  her  how  much  he  wanted  to  go  to  sleep. 
Then  he  was  roused  by  more  shouts  and  cries, 
and  by  a  voice  quite  close  to  him,  which  said, 
in  wonder:  "Good  God,  he's  a  ivliite  man!" 
Then  came  more  men,  and  a  sudden  order  for 
someone  to  stand  back. 

McKinnon  opened  his  eyes,  wearily,  and  saw 
a  yellow-faced  stranger  with  a  pointed  gray 
beard.  He  wore  a  uniform  like  an  officer's,  and 
carried  a  sword  from  a  red  silk  sash,  a  foolish 
and  womanish-looking  sash.  Then  came  other 
men  and  other  officers,  and  a  thin  and  far-away 
babbling  of  voices,  till  the  yellow  sand  where 
the  car  lay  changed  into  a  lake  of  swarming  and 
crowding  human  beings,  into  a  sea  of  little 
brown-faced  jumping-jacks  who  shouted  and 
contorted  and  flung  foolish  little  red-striped 
army-caps  up  in  the  air,  gibbering  and  arguing 
and  calling,  all  the  while,  in  some  outlandish 
and  incomprehensible  tongue. 

McKinnon  neither  knew  nor  cared  what  it 
meant.  He  only  wanted  to  get  somewhere 


THE  LAST  STAND  353 

where  it  was  quiet,  where  he  could  rest  in  peace. 
Then  the  noise  grew  Jouder  again,  and  a  shout 
ing  and  cheering  column  of  bluejackets  swung 
up,  followed  by  a  swarthy-skinned  band  of 
horsemen,  with  carbines,  on  prancing  little 
Peruvian  ponies.  McKinnon  could  see  that 
they  were  tearing  his  boxes  open,  that  they  were 
carrying  away  his  precious  ammunition. 

He  tried  to  fight  against  them,  but  he  found 
himself  held  down,  and  through  the  drifting 
sand-dust  he  saw  Alicia's  white  face  bent  low 
over  him.  Then  somebody  called  out  angrily: 
11  Stand  back  there!  Back!"  and  a  huge  hairy 
white  hand  tried  to  choke  the  breath  of  life  out 
of  his  body  by  pouring  what  seemed  liquid  fire 
down  his  throat,  from  a  leather-covered  flask. 
This  flask  was  quickly  and  mercifully  knocked 
to  one  side,  by  an  angry-faced  man  in  white 
duck,  who  wore  spectacles  and  said  in  perfect 
English:  "Get  the  poor  beggar  into  a  fiacre!" 
Then  there  was  the  repeated  cry  of  "Stand 
back!"  and  "To  the  Hospital!"  and  "No;  to 
the  Palace!"  and  the  next  moment  hands  were 
hauling  and  lifting  at  his  tortured  body.  He 
felt,  at  times,  that  a  woman  was  weeping  some 
where  beside  him.  But  he  could  not  be  sure  of 
this.  He  heard  a  thin  and  ghostlike  pound  of 
hoofs  and  a  rumble  of  wheels.  And  that  was 
all  he  could  remember. 


CHAPTER  XXXIH 

THE  LAST   WOBD 


was  very  happy.  It  was  six  long 
days  since  they  had  dug  the  bullet  out  of  his 
arm  and  told  him  to  lie  quiet  for  a  while  and 
rest  up  and  make  blood.  But  on  this  particu 
lar  morning  President  Duran's  own  glimmer 
ing  state-coach  had  carried  him  away  from  the 
Hospital,  and  he  had  been  given  prompt  and 
official  permission  to  go  to  the  Palace  roof, 
where  Aikens,  the  Boston  youth  who  acted  as 
the  Guariqui  operator,  was  still  struggling  over 
his  half  -renovated  wireless  apparatus. 

So  McKinnon  had  been  carried  to  the  roof  in 
a  chair,  by  two  of  Duran's  own  body-guard,  and 
the  white  sunlight  and  the  many-tinted  city  and 
the  companionship  of  the  lonely  and  garrulous 
boy  from  Boston  went  to  his  head,  like  wine,  and 
left  him  foolishly  and  wistfully  happy. 

He  laughed  at  the  idea  of  a  corrugated-iron 
wireless  station  on  the  roof  of  a  Palace;  it 
seemed  as  incongruous  to  him,  he  told  Aikens, 

354 


THE  LAST  WORD  355 

as  a  Crusader  smoking  a  Pittsburg  stogie,  or  a 
monastery  with  mail-chutes,  or  a  cathedral  with 
a  cash-register.  Then  Aikens  led  him  to  the 
battlemented  edge  of  the  flat  roof  and  showed 
him  the  arc-lights  that  swung  in  Avenida  Sac 
ramento  and  Calle  Florida,  and  the  new  power 
house  toward  Paraiso  Hill,  and  the  statuary 
that  gleamed  through  the  green  palms  of  the 
Parque  Nacional,  and  the  Asilo  Chapai  and  the 
roof  of  the  new  Boynton  Hospital,  and  the 
columned  front  of  the  Theatro  Locombio.  Then 
he  drew  himself  up  and  protested  that  Guariqui 
wasn't  such  a  one-horse  town,  after  all. 

McKinnon  continued  to  look  down  at  Guari 
qui,  after  Aikens  had  gone  back  to  his  work. 
He  could  see  the  iron-fenced  Palace  gardens, 
cool  and  shadowy  and  secluded-looking.  In  the 
Plaza  beyond  he  could  see  the  splash  of  water 
from  a  frond-hidden  fountain,  and  the  white 
statue  of  some  unknown  hero  who  had  died  in 
some  unknown  war  for  Locombian  liberty.  He 
could  see  the  yellow  front  of  the  cathedral  and 
the  sun-steeped  Prado  white  with  dust.  He 
could  see  the  American  bluejackets,  from  the 
Princeton,  who  were  still  picketing  the  streets, 
and  a  bullock-cart  that  crawled  noisily  over  the 
cobblestones. 

At  the  head  of  Avenida  Sacramento  he  could, 
see  another  detachment  of  white-helmetfid 


356  THE  LAST  WORD 

marines  clustered  about  one  of  the  Princeton's 
machine  guns.  He  could  make  out  a  scattered 
group  of  Ulloa's  mounted  Irregulars  crawling 
in  toward  Guariqui,  across  the  undulating,  flat- 
shadowed  plain  of  burnt  grass.  He  could  see 
rows  of  flat  houses  and  red-tiled  roofs,  and 
tame  buzzards  perched  on  ridge-poles,  and  a 
lonely  and  high-standing  royal  palm  or  two. 
And  beyond  the  sun-bathed  town  and  the  burnt 
plain  lay  the  gray-green  hills  and  the  lonely 
blue  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras. 

Then  the  sound  of  cheering  floated  up  to  him, 
and  to  the  east,  advancing  along  Calle  Nacional 
toward  the  Plaza,  was  a  long  line  of  infantry 
headed  by  a  mounted  band  that  broke  into  shrill 
and  stirring  music  as  they  detoured  in  past  the 
turreted  barracks.  He  could  see  the  gathering 
street  crowds,  the  men  in  linen  and  duck,  the 
bareheaded  women  in  mantillas,  the  Princeton's 
midshipmen  in  tight-fitting  tunics,  pretending 
to  ignore  the  heat,  the  marching  lines  of  bare 
footed  men  in  grotesquely  soiled  and  ragged 
uniforms. 

He  knew  that  De  Brigard's  movement  had 
been  crushed,  that  the  revolution  was  already 
a  thing  of  the  past.  There  was  a  smouldering 
province  or  two  on  the  lower  Pacific  slope,  but 
a  week  or  two  of  gun-seizing  by  Arturo  Boyn- 
ton's  mounted  police  would  stifle  all  that  was 


THE  LAST  WORD  357 

left  of  Ganley's  coup  d'etat.  And  Ganley  him 
self?  He  knew  that  Ulloa  was  still  patrolling 
the  coast  to  cut  off  Ganley's  escape.  He  won 
dered,  with  a  strange  sense  of  detachment,  just 
where  between  the  blue  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras 
and  the  Caribbean's  pulsing  surf -line  that  man 
of  destiny  was  skulking  and  hiding.  He  won 
dered  where  under  that  unpitying  and  high- 
arching  tropical  sky  the  lonely  fugitive  was  still 
scheming  and  plotting  and  battling  for  his  ulti 
mate  prerogative,  for  his  mortal  right  to  live. 

Yes,  it  was  all  over  and  done,  McKinnon  told 
himself,  wearily,  as  a  comprehension  of  the  soli 
tudes  that  enisled  him  began  to  creep  like  a 
slowly  rising  tide  through  every  fibre  of  his 
being.  They  meant  nothing  to  him,  these  out 
landish  soldiers  in  ragged  uniform,  this  sun 
baked  city  among  its  lonely  hills,  these  denim- 
clad  peons  with  long-bladed  machetes,  these 
red-tiled  homes  of  a  people  who  were  foreign  to 
him,  this  over-gaudy  Latin  palace  with  its 
second-rate  statuary  and  its  gilding  and  mir 
rors  that  would  be  an  affront  to  a  Hudson  River 
steamboat's  cabin.  It  was  a  land  of  strangers 
to  him.  He  suddenly  knew  that  he  was  home 
sick  for  the  North. 

He  was  possessed  with  a  longing  for  the 
older  and  more  austere  ways  of  life,  for  more 
tranquil  and  muffled  and  orderly  days,  for  the 


358  THE  LAST  WOED 

crowded  and  companionable  cities  of  his  own 
kind.  There  seemed  something  barbaric  to  him 
in  the  very  music  of  the  band  that  brayed  and 
shrilled  from  the  streets  below.  In  the  men 
who  followed  that  band  he  could  make  out  the 
narrow  shoulders  and  the  protruding  cheek 
bones  of  Carib-Indian  blood.  They  seemed 
more  than  outlanders  to  him ;  they  were  scarcely 
white  men.  And  he  was  tired  of  them  and  their 
foolish  little  wars ;  he  was  homesick. 

He  heard  a  movement  at  his  side,  and  he 
looked  up  from  the  embrasure  over  which  he 
leaned  to  see  Alicia  Boynton  standing  almost 
within  reach  of  his  hand.  She  seemed  nearly 
ghost-like,  to  his  first  startled  glance,  for  she 
was  dressed  in  white  linen,  and  the  things 
through  which  she  had  passed  and  many  days 
and  nights  of  anxiety  had  left  her  face  still 
colourless.  The  strong  sunlight,  too,  accentuated 
the  wistful  little  hollow  that  had  crept  into  her 
cheek.  The  touch  of  tragedy  which  this  shadow 
in  some  way  gave  to  her  face  was  contradicted, 
though,  by  the  deep  and  happy  look  in  her  eyes. 

Yet  as  she  stood  there  at  McKinnon's  side 
the  strangeness  and  the  loneliness  of  Guariqui 
seemed  almost  to  fade  away.  She  humanised  it 
and  brought  it  nearer  to  him.  Then  his  eyes 
fell  on  the  figure  of  an  officer  in  full  uniform, 
passing  in  through  the  Palace  gates,  with  his 


THE  LAST  WORD  359 

scabbard  in  his  gauntleted  hand.  He  was  as 
gilded  and  as  ornamental  as  a  character  from  a 
Broadway  musical  comedy.  But  he  served  to 
bring  a  wayward  surge  of  misery  over  the  soul 
of  the  American. 

McKinnon  sighed,  openly  and  audibly.  He 
could  recall,  only  too  easily,  the  beginning  of 
that  vague  unhappiness.  It  had  first  come  to 
birth  in  the  Hospital,  when  General  Alcantara, 
as  Alicia  had  called  him,  accompanied  her  to 
the  bed  in  the  little  blue-walled  ward.  He  was 
a  dapper  and  dashing  officer,  and  in  explaining 
that  he  had  once  studied  at  West  Point,  Alicia 
suggested  that  the  two  of  them  might  have  much 
in  common.  But  McKinnon  had  resented  that 
youthful  officer's  presence  at  her  side,  from  the 
first.  From  the  first,  too,  he  had  despised  the 
over-ready  and  white-toothed  smile,  the  padded 
and  punctilious  little  figure,  the  fawn-like  eyes 
of  Latin  brown,  as  soft  as  a  woman's.  He  had 
even  more  resented  the  panther-like  grace  of  the 
scrupulously  uniformed  little  figure,  and  the 
tropic-born  cadences  of  the  light-noted  and  care 
fully  modulated  voice  as  the  two  of  them  chat 
ted  and  laughed  together.  It  made  McKinnon 
think  of  himself  as  awkward  and  ungainly, 
as  raw  and  raucous  in  his  address  to  women. 
He  had  maintained  the  pretence,  to  himself, 
that  it  did  not  matter,  that  it  never  could  or 


360  THE  LAST  WORD 

would  matter.  But  he  knew,  at  last,  that  this 
was  not  true,  that  it  mattered  more  than  he 
dared  admit. 

"You  mustn't  do  this,"  the  girl  was  saying, 
reprovingly,  as  she  drew  closer  beside  him,  so 
that  her  tinted  parasol  threw  its  shadow  over 
his  head. 

"But  it's  so  good  to  be  out  again,"  he  said. 
"And  they're  giving  Ulloa's  Irregulars  an  ova 
tion  down  there." 

"But  you're  not  strong  yet,"  she  warned  him, 
looking  up  into  his  face  with  anxious  eyes. 

"Strong!"  he  laughed.  "Why,  I  feel  like  a 
shorthorn  in  from  the  range!" 

"But  that  is  a  tropical  sun  you  are  stand 
ing  in." 

"It  isn't  the  sun  that  makes  me  feel  so  bad," 
he  confessed.  "It's  being  so  far  away  from — 
from  home,  from — oh,  from  everything!" 

There  was  a  minute  or  two  of  silence  as  they 
stood  gazing  down  over  Guariqui. 

"I  know,"  she  said  at  last,  comprehendingly. 
He  looked  down  at  her,  a  little  surprised  at  the 
humility  in  her  voice.  She  had  seemed  a  little 
aloof  from  him  during  the  last  few  days;  he 
had  not  been  able  to  guess  at  the  source  of  that 
aloofness.  Guariqui  and  its  official  life,  he  felt, 
had  flung  a  bar  between  them.  It  seemed  to 
have  drawn  and  shut  her  in  as  one  of  its  own. 


THE  LAST  WOBD  361 

He  had  grown  almost  afraid  of  her,  since  the 
morning  he  had  seen  her  from  his  window,  sit 
ting  up  so  slender  and  fragile  in  Duran's  flash 
ing  official  landau  as  it  swept  out  through  the 
Palace  gates  surrounded  by  galloping  and  gor 
geous  cuirassiers  with  brazen  breastplates  and 
horsetail  helmets.  And  the  consciousness  of 
this  alienation  brought  a  touch  of  bitterness  into 
his  voice  as  he  went  on. 

"No;  I  don't  believe  you  do  know.  This  is 
the  life  you  were  born  to.  This  is  your  home. 
It  means  everything  to  you!" 

"Not  everything,"  she  corrected  him,  very 
quietly.  He  could  not  see  her  face,  for  she  was 
gazing  out  over  Paraiso  Hill. 

"But  I  know  you  would  never  be  happy  away 
from  it,  from  everything  here  that  has  been 
making  me  feel  so  lost  and  miserable,  any  more 
than  I  would  be  happy  away  from  the  things 
that  would  make  you  feel  lost  and  miserable." 

She  glanced  up  with  a  little  look  of  surprise. 

"I'm  not  a  Locombian,"  she  said,  laughing  a 
little. 

It  was  his  turn  to  laugh,  though  there  was 
little  mirth  in  it. 

"No;  but  you  are  the  sister  of  Dr.  Arturo 
Boynton,  Minister  of  War  for  the  Republic  of 
Locombia,  Member  of  the  Federal " 


362  THE  LAST  WORD 

She  looked  up  at  him  again,  and  met  his  gaze 
without  hesitation. 

"And  you  are  the  man  who  saved  the  Re 
public  of  Locombia  from — well,  you  know  what 
from ! ' ' 

He  threw  up  his  hand  with  a  gesture  of  pro 
test. 

"I  was  thinking  hanged  little  about  the  Re 
public  of  Locombia,"  he  retorted,  with  his 
cheery  and  companionable  laugh.  "I  wanted 
to  get  you  out  of  that  Ganley  mess." 

"Then  you  saved  me/'  she  protested. 

"When  I  happened  as  a  primary  considera 
tion  to  be  fighting  to  save  my  own  precious 
neck!"  he  deprecated. 

He  noticed  the  silent  reproof  in  her  eyes,  and 
as  he  saw  it  a  new  courage  began  to  grope  up 
ward  out  of  the  darkness  of  his  heart.  He 
thought,  a  little  enviously,  of  the  days  when  she 
had  been  so  close  to  him,  when  the  arm  of  no  in 
tervening  convention  had  stretched  out  between 
them.  Then  he  thought  of  the  blood  and  dust 
and  grime  of  his  battle,  of  the  blood  and  dust 
and  grime  that  lay  over  so  many  of  his  years. 
And  all  his  life  suddenly  seemed  an  empty  and 
aimless  and  wasted  life  to  him.  It  seemed  an 
affront  to  her,  even  to  tell  her  how  unworthy 
he  was,  yet  the  growing  hunger  and  ache  in  his 
heart  forbade  him  to  keep  silent.  He  watched 


THE  LAST  WORD  363 

a  condor  wheeling  above  the  gray-green  hill 
tops  until  it  became  a  drifting  black  speck  in 
the  turquoise  sky. 

The  glare  of  open  light  made  his  eyes  ache. 
He  remembered  a  certain  sentence  of  Ganley's: 
"It's  not  what  you'd  call  a  white  man's 
country."  The  thought  of  that  brought  his 
troubled  gaze  back  to  the  woman  at  his  side. 

"Have  you  always  been  happy  here?"  he  de 
manded,  audaciously. 

"Are  we  ever  always  happy?"  she  asked, 
after  a  silence. 

"But  do  you  expect  to  be  happy,  humanly 
happy,  here?" 

She  shook  her  head,  slowly,  from  side  to  side. 

"Not  now,"  she  answered. 

Again  a  mocking  flame  of  hope  shot  through 
him.  But  he  did  not  speak.  Her  hand  lay  on 
the  embrasure  beside  him.  He  reached  out  his 
arm  and  quietly  covered  the  white  fingers  with 
his  own.  His  mournful  glance  met  hers,  and 
for  the  first  time  the  full  significance  of  her 
nearness  came  home  to  him.  She  drew  back  a 
little,  frightened,  and  slowly  raised  her  head. 
The  touch  of  her  hand  on  his  had  turned  his 
very  blood  to  fire. 

"I  love  you,"  he  said,  without  moving.  She 
swayed  a  little  beside  the  embrasure;  but  she 
did  not  speak.  He  reached  out  his  unbandaged 


364  THE  LAST  WOED 

arm,  as  she  still  stood  gazing  at  him,  and  made 
a  movement,  a  hungry  and  pleading  movement, 
as  though  to  draw  her  closer  to  him.  "I  love 
you,"  he  repeated,  inadequately. 

A  soft  and  luminous  beauty  crept  into  her 
face  with  its  tragic  little  hollow  under  either 
cheek-bone ;  it  seemed  to  suffuse  and  renew  and 
transform  it  as  spring  itself  transforms  the 
world.  She  raised  her  hands  slowly,  almost 
mournfully,  as  though  it  cost  her  a  great  effort, 
until  they  rested  on  his  shoulders. 

"I  am  not  worthy  of  it,"  she  said,  with  a 
break  in  her  voice  that  was  almost  a  sob.  She 
would  have  said  more,  but  her  speech  was 
silenced  by  his  movement,  a  movement  which 
brought  her  trembling  into  his  arms. 

"I  have  always  loved  you,"  she  whispered, 
weakly. 

"And  you  would  go  back  with  me?"  he 
pleaded. 

"Anywhere,"  she  answered,  as  she  raised  her 
wistfully  smijing  lips  to  his.  ' '  To  the  end  of  the 
world!" 

Some  wordless  languor  of  surrender  left  the 
suddenly  saddened  lips  still  parted,  and  caused 
her  heavy  eyelids  to  droop  over  unquestioning 
and  capitulating  eyes.  It  was  an  elemental  and 
absolute  relinquishment,  as  quiet  and  yet  as 
complete  as  the  surrender  to  Death  itself, 


THE  LAST  WORD  365 

touched  with  sorrow  only  as  all  things  that 
fringe  on  the  Infinite  are  so  touched.  It  was 
love,  the  deep  love  that  lives  only  in  deep  souls. 
They  were  alone  under  the  high-arching 
tropical  sun.  The  condor  wheeled  back  over 
Paraiso  Hill  unnoticed;  barefooted  soldiers  in 
ragged  denim  marched  by  under  the  Palace  un 
seen;  Ulloa's  mounted  band  brayed  itself  into 
the  distance  unheard. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE  LAST  DEBT 

IT  was  Aikens,  the  wireless-operator,  who 
brought  McKinnon  and  Alicia  back  to  the  world 
of  reality. 

"  I  've  got  'em ! ' '  he  called  excitedly,  from  his 
little  station  door  shadowed  by  its  awning  of 
faded  striped  canvas.  "I've  picked  something 
up!" 

He  disappeared  from  sight,  and  McKinnon 
could  hear  the  crackle  and  spit  of  his  "spark" 
across  the  "spark-gap." 

Then  the  youth  reappeared  under  the  faded 
striped  awning.  He  held  a  much-worn  Panama 
hat  in  his  hand,  and  he  approached  the  older 
man  with  some  hesitation. 

"Could  you  help  me  out  for  a  few  minutes?" 
he  asked,  with  a  hand-wave  towards  his 
"station." 

"What's  wrong?" 

"I've  got  to  get  somebody  from  the 

366 


THE  LAST  DEBT  367 

Office.  I  ought  to  have  the  President  here, 
now. ' ' 

""What  is  it?"  asked  Alicia,  as  they  crossed 
to  the  "station"  door. 

"It's  Boracao  calling  the  Princeton.  It's 
going  to  be  the  last  rocket-fizz  of  this  fireworks 
exhibition." 

He  flung  on  a  coat  and  turned  to  McKinnon. 

' '  But  please  watch  that  responder  until  I  get 
back!" 

And  he  was  off  before  McKinnon  could  ad 
just  the  phones  and  take  his  seat  before  the  in 
strument. 

But  as  the  newcomer  pressed  the  receiver 
against  his  ear,  he  could  hear  a  sound,  faint 
and  small,  like  the  tick  of  a  wood-beetle.  This 
sound  translated  itself  into  a  coherent  sequence 
of  dots  and  dashes,  spelling  out  the  call  for 
"Cruiser  Princeton"  and  repeating  it,  impa 
tiently,  with  a  strangely  human  note  of  com 
plaint  in  the  petulance  of  the  wood-beetle  tick 
ings. 

"Princeton — Princeton,"  the  call  was  re 
peated,  almost  frantically,  it  seemed  to  McKin 
non,  as  he  caught  up  the  operator's  pencil  and 
began  to  write  on  the  paper  before  him.  Then 
came  the  break  and  the  answer  of  the  far-off 
cruiser.  Something  in  the  crisply  stiff  "send" 
of  the  navy  operator  reminded  the  listener  of 


368  THE  LAST  DEBT 

the  tightly  jacketed  midshipmen  in  the  Plaza 
below  him.  Then  came  the  hurrying  dots  and 
dashes  of  the  Boracao  operator : 

Detachment  of  Morazan's  Scouts  captured  American 
named  Ganley  this  morning  at  daybreak.  Ganley  held  here 
in  guartel — condemned  to  death  by  fusilado  after  drumhead 
court-martial  by  Morazan.  He  claims  to  be  American  citi 
zen  and  wants  protection  of  his  government.  I  cannot  ge*t 
Guariqui — station  there  dead  for  seven  days  past.  Hurry 
in  relief  on  receipt  of  this  or  will  be  too  late.  If  possible 
land  marines  at  San  Antonio  Inlet  and  push  overland  to 
Boracao  by  way  of  Agira  River  Trail.  I  have  done  every 
thing  in  my  power,  but  am  helpless.  You  must  hurry — is  to 
be  shot  at  sunset  ADOLPH  KLAUSEE, 

American  Consul,  Boracao. 

McKinnon  handed  the  written  sheet  to  Alicia 
without  speaking. 

She  read  it  and  handed  it  back  to  him.  Her 
hand  was  shaking  a  little. 

"What  can  we  do?"  she  asked,  almost  in  a 
whisper. 

"There's  nothing  we  can  do,"  was  McKin 
non 's  answer.  "Our  coils  are  still  out  of  order. 
They're  still  too  weak  to  send!" 

"But  we  can't  stand  here  and  see  the  man 
die — now — in  that  way!" 

McKinnon  suddenly  held  up  a  hand  for 
silence,  for  the  Princeton  was  sending  again: 

Cannot  land  men  before  communicating  with  Guariqui. 
Ask  suspension  of  execution  of  American  named  Ganley  for 
day  or  two  until  Guariqui  conference. 

LIEUTENANT 


THE  LAST  DEBT  369 

Then  came  a  break  and  another  wait,  while 
from  somewhere  far  off  in  the  streets  below 
floated  up  the  bray  and  throb  of  the  military 
band.  Then  a  second  Boracao  message  trickled 
down  through  the  Guariqui  wires  and  stirred 
the  coherer  into  feeble  life : 

Can  do  nothing.  Morazan  claims  acting  for  General 
Ulloa  under  President  Duran's  orders.  But  whole  thing 
terrible  mistake.  We  must  have  help  at  once,  or  innocent 
and  law-abiding  citizens  will  be  murdered.  Send  men  and 
heliograph  advance  from  San  Antonio  Hill. 

KLAUSER. 

Aiken's  hurried  return  with  two  orderlies  and 
an  officer  in  full  uniform  kept  McKinnon  from 
intercepting  the  Princeton's  reply.  The  little 
station  had  suddenly  become  close  and  stifling. 
He  felt  weak  and  unstrung,  and  was  glad  to 
gain  the  open  air  and  find  the  quiet  sunlight  and 
the  slowly  waving  palms  about  him  once  more. 
He  was  glad  to  know  that  the  woman  he  loved 
stood  at  his  side,  and  that  their  future  life  was 
to  be  a  life  far  from  such  scenes. 

They  were  still  there,  side  by  side  above  the 
embrasure,  when  the  hurrying  Aikens,  as  he 
darted  below-stairs,  thrust  a  sheet  of  carbon 
copy  into  their  hands  as  he  passed.  McKinnon 
held  it  up  and  read  it  aloud: 

American  named  Ganley  lust  shot  down  by  quartel  guards 
as  he  broke  jail  here — body  surrendered  to  me  by  alcalde — 
am  holding  it  awaiting  instructions. 

KLAUSEB. 


370  THE  LAST  DEBT 

The  sheet  fluttered  to  the  ground. 

"It's  over,"  said  the  woman,  covering  her 
face  with  her  hands,  while  a  movement  that  was 
almost  a  shiver  crept  through  her  stooping 
body. 

"Yes,  it's  over  now,"  echoed  McKinnon,  ab 
sently,  as  his  arm  went  out  to  sustain  her.  And 
they  sat  there,  alone  with  their  thoughts,  for 
many  minutes. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY .FACILITY 


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